Tunirrusiangit

"A strong step towards a resurgence of Indigenous artists, thinkers and makers ... providing a caring and attentive opportunity to reflect on these influential artists." — Canadian Art

"Tunirrusiangit beautifully showcases the legacy of these trailblazing Inuit artists while opening a door for the next generation pushing modern Inuit art forward." — NOW Toronto

Anna Hudson is a professor of Canadian art history and curatorial studies at York University.

Jocelyn Piirainen is an urban Inuk and independent curator originally from Ikaluktutiak (Cambridge Bay), Nunavut.

Georgiana Uhlyarik is Fredrik S. Eaton Curator, Canadian Art, and co-lead of the Indigenous + Canadian Art Department at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She works collaboratively with artists and curators from across the Americas and Europe and teaches art at York University and the University of Toronto. Her publications include Moving the Museum: Indigenous + Canadian Art at the AGO, Magnetic North: Imagining Canada in Painting 1910–40, Tunirrusiangit: Kenojuak Ashevak and Tim Pitsiulak, Rita Letendre: Fire & Light, Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic, and Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry.

Kenojuak Ashevak (1927-2013), an Order of Canada recipient, is known as the "grandmother of Inuit art," Famous for her fluid graphic storytelling and stunning use of magic markers, she quickly became a defining figure and one of the first Indigenous artists to be embraced as a Canadian contemporary artist.

Ashevak's legacy inspired her nephew, Timootee (Tim) Pitsiulak (1967-2016) to take up drawing at the Kinngait Studios. In his relatively short career, he became a popular figure, known for drawing animal figures with a hunter's precision and capturing the technological presence of the South in Nunavut.