Floe Edge: Contemporary Art And Collaborations From Nunavut
Artist Meet and Greet Jamasie Pitseolak & Nelson Tagoona
Thursday Sept 28th from 7-9pm at Urban Shaman Gallery
Please join us as we greet and celebrate two artists that are a part of the current show Floe Edge in Urban’s space, Jamasie Pitseolak and Nelson Tagoona. Nosh on Artic Char and see contemporary Nunavut artwork. We are happy to have this rare opportunity to have these artists in from way Northern Canada and we hope you may join us in welcoming them to our Prairie city.
Jamasie Pitseolak
At 42, Jamasie Pitseolak is at the forefront of a generation of Inuit artists who are bringing new ideas and sensibilities to the evolving tradition of northern art. Born in 1968 in Cape Dorset on southern Baffin Island, Pitseolak belongs to the first generation of Inuit who grew up in permanent year-round settlements. The son of artists Mark and Ookpik Pitseolak, he began carving when he was 8 or 9, selling his first works to the Hudson’s Bay Company. One of his earliest influences was his grandfather, Peter Pitseolak, a well-known carver and photographer from the Dorset area. Feeling a lack of connection with more traditional themes and unsatisfied with the direction of his work, he began incorporating unconventional modern imagery into his expression in the late 1990s.
Like many Inuit sculptors, Pitseolak works in a range of organic and non-organic indigenous materials, including stone, antler and ivory. The similarity ends there. Whereas most Inuit artists produce sculptures from single blocks of stone, Pitseolak works like a collagist, painstakingly assembling his images from individually carved pieces. Equally inventive is his distinctive modern subject matter. Instead of traditional images of hunters and wildlife, Pitseolak tends to represent distinctly modern objects—motorcycles, machinery with moveable parts, guitars and tables (complete with vases). The majority of Pitseolak’s works are marked by a playful charm, a quality reflected also in his sculptures’ titles, many of which are based on puns. That said, some works show a more serious approach, including representations of guns and modern weaponry which it is possible to read as the artist’s engagement with local and global violence. Pitseolak’s work is in many private and public collections, including the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Nelson Tagoona
Nelson Tagoona, a one-of-a-kind musician best known for his inspirational messages and his unique blend of vocal percussion and traditional Inuit throat singing called “throat boxing”. This powerful performance has impacted the youth and garnered Tagoona the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/NelsonTagoona/
Youtube https://youtu.be/evcfGADRNPM
REMEMBER!
Urban does Nuit Blanche Winnipeg
Performance as part of the show “Floe Edge: Contemporary Art And Collaborations From Nunavut”
Musician: Nelson Tagoona
When: Saturday, September 30 at 10pm till 11pm
Where: Deer + Almond (85 Princess St. At the corner of McDermot Ave.)
Nuit Blanche Winnipeg event:
http://nuitblanchewinnipeg.ca/event/urban-does-nuit-blanche-winnipeg-w-nelson-tagoona/
Floe Edge continues in the gallery till October 14. For more info on the show please visit http://urbanshaman.org/site/exhibitions.
Urban Shaman would like to thank Calm Air for sponsoring flights to these artists to come to Winnipeg.