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ANNIE POOTOOGOOK (1969 - ) |
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Annie is an emerging artist who began drawing in 1997 under the encouragement of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative in Cape Dorset. She quickly developed a preference for drawing scenes from her own life, and has become a prolific graphic artist in the intervening years. In 2003, Annie's first print was released: an etching and aquatint drawn by the artist on a copper plate. The image, titled "Interior and Exterior", is a memory of Annie's childhood, lovingly recording the particulars of settlement life in Cape Dorset in the 1970s. Annie is the daughter of Napachie and Eegyvudluk Pootoogook, and the granddaughter of renowned artist Pitseolak Ashoona. When Pitseolak was bedridden in her final years, her granddaughter visited and watched her work; the senior artist told young Annie that some day she too would draw. Annie also notes that she has been influenced artistically by her mother's graphics and the detailed drawings and prints of her uncle, Kananginak Pootoogook. Generally, Annie prefers to work alone at home. She approaches each drawing systematically, beginning with outlines in graphite before working up details in black ink and finishing with increasingly bold areas of coloured pencil. Her most recent drawings have begun to employ shading to render forms more solidly in space. Annie's artworks challenge conventional expectations of 'Inuit' art. Her subjects are not Arctic animals or scenes of nomadic existence from a time before settlement life; rather, her images reflect her experiences as a female artist living and working in contemporary Canada. Like her grandmother Pitseolak before her, Annie is an instinctive chronicler of her times. She fills her domestic interiors with details such as clocks and calendars, as well as graduation photos, inspirational quotes, and Inuktitut messages taped to the fridge in modern Inuit kitchens. Amongst meticulous depictions of modern outpost camp life and scenes peopled by local Cape Dorset personalities, Annie's graphics are peppered with images of ATM cash machines, Playboy-style eroticism, the social services office, spousal abuse and the Iraqi war on television. The death of her mother, Napachie, has recently led Annie to create a new series of soul-searching drawings reflecting on death and personal spirituality. Among Annie's most recent achievements, was a solo exhibition of Annie's work at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, in the summer of 2006. In addition to this honourable accomplishment, Annie was recognized as an up and coming, young Canadian artist. She won the prestigious Sobey Art Award in October 2006. Annie has most recently been honoured with an invitation to Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, in June 2007.
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