Relations

An imposing mural installation by Mark Igloliorte (born in 1977), Nipakittuk (Quiet) features 20 skateboards spray-painted with stenciled Inuktitut words, including nalautsâk (try and guess), nâlak (listen) and pitsiak (do carefully). The artist is drawing parallels between learning Inuktitut, his artistic process and skateboarding, a sport he began practising as a teenager: all involve effort, do-overs and setbacks before success is achieved.

We often think of Nunavik as a snow-covered, inhospitable and empty land. Two water colors in our collection by Niap, an Inuk woman born in 1986 who grew up in this land rich in plant and animal life, tell another story. Niap paints with water drawn from the Rivière Koksoak, which flows through her native village of Kuujjuaq. According to her, these waters harbor a spirit and choose colors to create their own landscape.

A key figure in Canada’s abstract art movement and recipient of the 2010 Governor General’s Award, Rita Letendre was born in 1928 to an Abenaki mother. This painting combines contrasting elements that Letendre strove for years to finely balance, solid structure and vibrant intensity. There is almost a suggestion of geological activity—an earthquake or a gush of molten lava—an impression fostered by the generous impasto, the spatula strokes and the warm color palette.

Hydro‑Québec owns two sculptures by Mattiusi Iyaituk, an artist from Nunavik born in 1950 and appointed Compagnon des arts et des lettres du Québec in 2018. In laying soapstone and serpentinite drawn from the earth with organic matter (caribou antlers and muskox horn), as if breathing life into the stone, Iyaituk evokes shamanic metamorphosis. His works tell stories expressed orally for millennia and speak to his desire to share, affirm and preserve Inuit culture.

This work by Atikamekw Nehirowisiw artist Eruoma Awashish (born in 1980) evokes the concept of waskamatisiwin, or “living in full consciousness in the balance of the circle.” The circular shape of the work suggests that humankind is not the center and master of creation but exists within the circle, like all the living creatures it depends on, while the heart—made of porcupine quills—symbolizes the beating drum that calls us together.

Born in 1988, Meryl McMaster is of British, Dutch and Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) origin. From one photograph to another, she transforms into allegorical characters that vary depending on the context and the costumes and accessories that she creates in her studio. In this work, she represents a messenger sent by the monolith, a wise witness to the innumerable cycles of life. Brought to Saskatchewan by the receding glaciers some 14,000 years ago, this rock once served as a gathering place for the Plains Cree and later, the European colonists. It seems to tell us of the urgency to take care of the environment and remind us of our stewardship role as an integral part of the world in which we live.

Creatura Dada is a film without dialogue directed by Caroline Monnet, a multidisciplinary artist of Anishinabe and French descent born in 1985. The film celebrates six francophone Indigenous women artists from three generations living in Montréal who gather in their elegant clothes to share a feast and enjoy each other’s company. Exuberant, eccentric and full of life, these women are portrayed in all their glory… nothing like the somber and reductive stereotypes generally depicted in the media.