Ningiukulu Teevee: Stories from Kinngait

8 Feb-1 Jun 2024

Overview

Ningiukulu Teevee - Stories from Kinngait

Ningiukulu (Ning) Teevee was born in 1963 in the hamlet of Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset), on south Baffin Island in the territory of Nunavut. She is part of a new generation of Inuit artists raised in permanent communities, rather than the seasonal hunting camps of their parents. Since 2004, 150 of Teevee’s drawings have been translated into prints for the Kinngait annual print collections. In Kinngait, it is common for artists to produce drawings that are passed on to skilled printmakers for production as prints. Kinngait Studios has produced an annual print collection every year since 1959.

Teevee’s most favoured subjects are arctic animals, abstract natural forms, and the stories associated with Inuit cultural traditions. She has an abiding interest in traditional tales that have been passed down through generations. Her images include creation stories, tales of mistreatment and its consequences, tales of the legendary traveller, Kiviuq, animal fables, and stories that relate the activities of shamans and the various spirits that inhabit the Shamanic belief system. This includes the powerful female sea spirit variously called Sedna, Nuliajuk, or Taleelayu, who controls the supply of game animals to hunters. In September 2023, Teevee was awarded the prestigious biennial Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award. Today she is one of the leading graphic art talents working in Canada. 

This exhibition has been organized by the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq—home to the world’s largest public collection of contemporary Inuit art. Supported by an unparalleled record of exhibitions, publications, and research, the WAG opened Qaumajuq in March 2021, the first Inuit Art Centre of its kind in the world. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Darlene Coward Wight, who has been Curator of Inuit Art since 1986.

All works in this exhibition are from the collection of Cholakis Dental Group.