Itee Pootoogook: a self-taught master

”Drinking Coke,” 2010 coloured pencil on paper, by Itee Pootoogook. The inscription reads: “Drinking Coke. Most people drink Coke.”

”Watching APTN, 2009, coloured pencil on paper, by Itee Pootoogook. The inscription reads: “Watching an Aboriginal People’s Television Network.”

“Night Time,” 2007, coloured pencil on paper, by Itee Pootoogook.

“Carving With an Axe,” 2006, coloured pencil & graphite on paper, by Itee Pootoogook. The inscription reads: “Carving with an axe. Those are the soapstones on the left hand side. Cloudy day.”

When you look at drawings by Itee Pootoogook of Cape Dorset, you see that this 60-year-old artist knows things that many other master artists toil years to understand — and that some will never learn to convey through their art.

”I taught myself everything. Nobody taught me anything. I had no teacher. I learned on my own,” said Pootoogook in an interview March 11 from Vancouver, where he attended the opening of a solo show of his work at the Marion Scott/Kardush Productions gallery.

The 38 drawings on display show the results of Pootoogook’s keen eye and his ability to put what he sees on paper, using coloured or graphite pencils.

In every drawing, Pootoogook succeeds in filling the paper with his unique view of the world.

And what’s interesting is how his viewpoint changes.

Pootoogook sometimes appears to be looking with the subject, such as in “Watching an Aboriginal People’s Television Network,” where he could also be in front of the television.

In “Behind Bars,” where a man gazes through the bars of a cell, Pootoogook is obviously looking at someone, perhaps in Cape Dorset, judging from the shape of the snow-covered hills seen through the cell’s window.

Sometimes the image is seen along with Pootoogook, as his drawing focuses on some outside scene, occasionally with people.

“Carving With An Axe” shows a carver perched on a green canoe looking directly at the viewer, wearing sunglasses, with a cigarette in hand, and a friendly, welcoming look.

In every landscape Pootoogook finds some interest. His eye follows the geography, the turn of the shoreline against the river.

He invites you to peer in, and share his experience, as in “Right after sunset” where the water and sky appear in bright yellow, the shore shines in white and a blueish island looks like it’s floating.

Pootoogook manages to capture what was probably a fleeting sight, a moment of intense colour that we see, but can’t remember and portray the way he does.

Bright and deep, strong colours stand out as Pootoogook’s trademarks. They’re not always exactly what you see in daily life.

Take his “Night Time,” drawn with coloured pencil on paper, which shows the land and sky as red, with white for ice and a slash of orange for where the sun is still visible on the horizon.

And “Long After Midnight” keeps the paper at the bottom black, to show how the little light fades away.

Pootoogook’s drawings also look at buildings, such as the curved shape of the co-op garage and how snow nestles against it or the shape of the window in “Apartment #342.”

Pootoogook’s choices of subjects and images show scenes from daily life in Cape Dorset, such as 
”Drinking Coke,” a simple drawing on pencil on paper, which says, “Drinking Coke. Most people drink Coke.”

Some of his drawings, executed at the Kinngait studio in Cape Dorset, come from his memory, Pootoogook said — or from photos he takes.

Pootoogook, born in 1951 in Kimmirut, moved to Cape Dorset as a child. The stepson of Ishuhungitok Qiatsuq and carver Paulassie Pootoogook, he started drawing in the mid-1980s.

Pootoogook took a Nunavut Arctic College drawing and printmaking certificate program in 2000.

In 2008 one of his images was included in Cape Dorset’s spring print collection. And you can see his work in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada.

The Vancouver exhibit opened March 12 and remains at the gallery, located at 2423 Granville in Vancouver, until April 10.

“Right After Sunset, 2009, coloured pencil on paper, by Itee Pootoogook.