New web site for Inuit art

The Ottawa-based Inuit Art Foundation has launched a new web site in English and Inuktitut to promote Inuit art on-line.

Called “Inuit Art Alive,” the web site offers a virtual exhibition featuring a half-century of art by more than 50 Inuit artists.

“We hope you enjoy browsing through images, artists’ profiles, interviews, published articles, and general information about the North,” says the web site’s introduction by Mattiusi Iyaituk of Ivijivik, president of the Inuit Art Foundation.

The artists, listed alphabetically from Manasie Akpaliapik to Lucy Tutsweetok, each have a separate web page, which feature a quote, a biography, photos, and information about their art.

“Carving takes all kinds of knowledge; knowledge of the land so that you can find your way to the quarry site, and when you get there, knowledge of the site so that you will know where to dig in the snow,” Iyaituk says on the web page linked to his name.

The web page goes on to describe how Iyaituk first carved images from the past using simple hand tools. Later, after taking a workshop in Ottawa, he began using power tools. He also revived the practice of using inlay on stone carvings.

As for his abstract works, which have gained Iyaituk world-wide attention, they were discovered by accident.

“I started doing abstract forms in 1979. One day, I was doing a sculpture of a man, but I didn’t like it. So I just made shapes on one side. Since then, I have been doing sculptures using abstract forms,” he told the Inuit Art Quarterly in 1996.

To learn more about Iyaituk’s work and about many other artists, consult the Inuit _Art Alive web site, go to: www.inuitartalive.ca .