Arctic Talent: Finding beauty in diversity

Dawny Tanuyak finds beauty in the qualities that make each human face unique.

Dawny Tanuyak sketched this portrait of Hollywood actor Anne Hathaway in graphite pencils. (Photo courtesy of Dawny Tanuyak)

“I just really like to look at people. I like analyzing their features, seeing how different we are,” said the 16-year-old Chesterfield Inlet portrait artist.

“It’s hard for me to find someone ugly.”

Tanuyak creates portraits of family, friends and neighbours.

She works in graphite pencils, oil paint and gouache, a water-based pigment that is more opaque than watercolours.

She has sold art commissioned by the local Co-op — a portrait of Sedna in profile, with the Inuit sea goddess’ hair churning like ocean waves in her wake.

Her work is beginning to attract attention beyond the hamlet as well.

Dawny Tanuyak painted this depiction of Sedna, commissioned by the Chesterfield Co-op. (Photo courtesy of Dawny Tanuyak)

Researchers with the University of Manitoba tapped Tanuyak to create illustrations for their Genice II project, a multidisciplinary Arctic research initiative based out of Winnipeg’s Centre for Earth Observation Science.

The researchers study the environmental outcomes and risks of oil and diesel spills in ice-covered marine waters in the region.

The illustrations Tanuyak will be asked to create will be “related to microbes,” said University of Manitoba researcher Nicole Wilson.

Tanuyak described her artistic ambitions during an interview at Victor Sammurtok School, where she is starting Grade 11 this month.

Fall 2015-Summer 2023: Tanuyak begins drawing in daycare. She continues sketching throughout the elementary grades and into middle school.

Fall 2022: Grade 6. Tanuyak falls for manga, a Japanese genre of graphic novels with stylized characters drawn in panels.

Graphic novel series such as Jujitsu Kaiser, My Hero Academia, Chainsaw Man, and Demonslayer influence her own artistic style.

Fall 2024: Grade 8. Tanuyak identifies “artist” as her career aspiration. She watches YouTube tutorials as she studies for a career in illustration.

Summer 2026: Tanuyak learns new techniques hands-on at the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, in Canning, N.S. There, during a three-week summer camp, she takes courses in graphic novel narrative and fine arts.

Tanuyak sketches portraits of her peers and staff, which she assembles into a collage that is later displayed during a showcase of student artwork at the centre.

Luke Fair, the camp’s visual arts mentor and a painting instructor with the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, encourages Tanuyak to pursue art after graduation.

These are portraits Dawny Tanuyak sketched of her peers at the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, in Canning, N.S., in early August. (Photo courtesy of Dawny Tanuyak)

Staff encourage her to “refine her craft and skills so that her talent can shine and she can use that to express herself,” said Chris O’Neill, executive director of the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts.

Talent Tip: “For a portrait, I prefer to sit with someone and just let them do what they’re doing as long as I can,” she said. “I watch their face. I notice everything.”