Mining the macabre: Exhibition celebrates work of Nunavut artist

In his own words, the late Nunavut artist Nick Sikkuark created art from his own imagination.

“Shamans and spirits, things no one would imagine. When I carve them, I make them live,” Sikkuark once said of his fantastical approach to art.

More than 100 of these imaginative artworks are now on display at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, in the first-ever retrospective devoted to Sikkuark’s work.

“He became very, well known for these exquisite, extraordinary pieces that he does, unlike anybody else,” said associate curator of the exhibition Christine Lalonde.

A few of the more than 100 sculptures, drawings and paintings of spirit-like creatures and everyday Inuit that are on display in the new exhibition, “Nick Sikkuark: Humour and Horror,” celebrating the Kugaaruk artist at the National Gallery of Canada. (Photos by Madalyn Howitt)

Born in what is now the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, Sikkuark was a multidisciplinary artist who worked in several mediums. He was known largely for his Book of Things You Will Never See children’s book series that was part of a ​​Northwest Territories educational program to revive the use of Indigenous languages by integrating them into school curriculums.

“​His books, they’re a little open-ended. I think he wanted us to approach them with an openness and a curiosity,” Lalonde said.

The exhibition guides visitors through Sikkuark’s prolific art legacy over four decades of his career from the 1960s to 2013, including when he was chosen as one of the artists to represent Canada at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.

In addition to his famed books, Sikkuark was also a dedicated sculptor who worked with natural materials like stone, antlers and bones to create macabre and sometimes comical carvings. As a painter and illustrator, he used black and coloured pencils to draw almost caricature-like portraits of Inuit and mythical Arctic creatures.

It’s that blending of the comedic and the horrific, of two seemingly disparate concepts, that show both the contrasting and complementary elements of Sikkuark’s works, Lalonde said.

“Nick Sikkuark: Humour and Horror” exhibition curator Christine Lalonde worked for a decade on the first retrospective of the late Kugaaruk artist’s work. (Photo by Madalyn Howitt)

“​​I don’t know if harmonious is the right word, but they rest easily together,” she said.

“You could look at any one of his pieces and you would be drawn either by the humour or by the horror. But sometimes quickly, other times slowly, the opposite reaction seeps in.”

Lalonde was first drawn to Sikkuark’s work when she came across a carving by him, a small bone and fur depiction of a grave scene.

“I saw it in an auction house. I was really drawn to it, first of all by how the person who made it took the time to so beautifully, naturalistically portray a grave scene, which is very unusual and rare,” she said.

“I just [thought], there is more that we need to know about this artist.”

Lalonde has been working on the exhibition for a decade, since she met with Sikkuark just a few months before his death in 2013.

“This excitement we had and the idea that we would have many more conversations was not meant to be,” she said.

Instead, Lalonde collaborated over the years with the Sikkuark family, Kugaaruk community members and other admirers of Sikkuark’s art to pull together the diverse exhibition and compile a trilingual catalogue to accompany the show.

A still from filmmaker Jordan Konek’s documentary about the life and works of Nunavut artist Nick Sikkuark, now on display as part of “Nick Sikkuark: Humour and Horror” at the National Gallery of Canada. (Photo by Madalyn Howitt/film still by Jordan Konek).

The exhibition also features an intimate 21-minute documentary about Sikkuark by filmmaker Jordan Konek, which weaves together interviews with the artist’s family, friends and elders who knew him as both an artist and a community member.

The film sheds light on Sikkuark’s artistic process and ways of life that informed his subject matter.

“His artwork is about his own personal expression, without a doubt, and so incredibly valuable for [the] cultural knowledge he held and expresses in his art,” Lalonde said.

“It moves even to another level, in just looking at what it means to be human and to have all those emotions, showing us a way where we don’t have to think of them as at war within ourselves.”

Nick Sikkuark: Humour and Horror is on at the National Gallery of Canada until March 24, 2024.