Cape Dorset, Toronto swap styles during creative residency

Cape Dorset artist Tim Pitsiulak pencils in the lines of one of his famous bowhead whale drawings onto black paper April 11 at Open Studio, a printmaking centre in Toronto. In partnership with Dorset Fine Arts, Pitsiulak is taking part in a two-week residency in Toronto to create silkscreened print editions of two his iconic drawings — a form of printmaking not practiced at home at Kinngait Studios. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

This drawing of a bowhead whale, full of intricate sketches of Inuit hunting tools and other imagery, will be reproduced as a silkscreen print this week in Toronto. (IMAGE COURTESY OF DFA)

Master printer Nicholas Shick, left, is working with Tim Pitsiulak this week to recreate two of the Nunavut artists’ drawings into silkscreen prints. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

TORONTO — Hunched over a light table at a downtown print studio, Tim Pitsiulak pushes the first strokes of his beige pastel crayon across a black paper.

Dressed in a grey t-shirt and Team Canada cap, Pitsiulak stands out from the plaids, beards and tattoos sported by the other printmakers in the studio, although the Nunavut artist looks completely at home.

After all, it’s his sixth visit to the big city; Pitsiulak has done a handful of shows in Toronto before.

Pitsiulak just stopped at a nearby art store to get pack of his favourite brand of pastel pencils — Derwent — and he chats with other print makers while he draws.

“I just go at it,” Pitsiulak said, when asked what his set up is like at home at Cape Dorset’s Kinngait Studios.

He usually has the local FM station on while he draws, or his favourite band, The Scorpions, Pitsiulak said, as he mouthed one of the band’s guitar riffs.

But he’s settled in just fine under the bright lights at this spacious printmaking centre, Open Studio, which is hosting his residency this month.

Dorset Fine Arts, the marketing arm of Kinngait Studios, teamed up with Toronto’s Open Studio to bring Pitsiulak south for the two-week creative residency.

Here, Pitsiulak is working with in-house printmakers to create silkscreened versions of two is his iconic drawings — one of a bowhead whale with detailed hunting imagery sketched into its body, and another of a polar bear swimming underwater.

Although silkscreen prints have been produced in Nunavut, Kinngait Studios is better known for its stone cut lithography.

“I’ve never done this before,” Pitsiulak said. “I’m looking forward to it. I hope this will catch on in Dorset.”

To make a silkscreen, printmakers lay out a large black piece of paper on the light table. On his paper, Pitsiulak began by drawing out image on the 26- by 30-inch sheet.

Over the next week, each colour from the original drawing will be reproduced or taken apart in layers to create the new print.

The residency is one of a handful of new projects developed by Dorset Fine Arts to help build capacity among Kinngait’s artists and to promote their work to a wider market.

Pitsiulak’s ability as an artist to bridge between traditional Inuit and more contemporary art made him ideal for the residency, said Will Huffman, Dorset Fine Arts’ marketing manager.

‘We really thought Tim would be a great person to initiate this,” Huffman said.

“Tim has been really popular, both in the museum world and with the buying public. He’s a household name.”

Pitsiulak recently completed a major commission for the TD Centre in Toronto, and has a coin design in circulation with the Royal Canadian Mint, among other projects he’s working on.

Dorset Fine Arts is working with the Government of Nunavut to make the residency an annual event, with the hope that artists can return home to Cape Dorset to mentor fellow Kinngait artists.

If you’re in Toronto, you can stop by and visit Pitsiulak at Open Studio on April 21 between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.