Featured Artist: Pitseolak Qimirpik

Visit the Craft Ontario Shop for a collection of Inuit drawings and sculptures by Pitseolak Qimirpik, on display in the Feature Window from May 17 to June 15, 2024.

Click here to see the whole collection available on the Online Shop!

Pitseolak Qimirpik is a young Cape Dorset carver who’s quickly established himself as both apprentice (his father is renowned Dorset carver Kelly Qimirpik) and contemporary artist. Qimirpik has successfully distinguished himself through this very juxtaposition, marrying pop-culture signifiers with traditional carving.

Bart and Lisa Sculpture by Pitseolak Qimirpik

Qimirpik sits at the helm of a surging generation of Inuit artists who are reconfiguring their position onto history, traditional media, and narrative figuration. It’s a group who’s establishing itself through an aesthetic more easily situated in the contemporary art world, while never fully divorced from its ancestral associations and formal base. Qimirpik, like so many of his contemporaries, continues to make the link between the two.

Fire Breathing Satanby Pitseolak Qimirpik

From the age of thirteen, Qimirpik has established himself through exceptional craftsmanship and an interest in contemporary signifiers. Producing figures like muskoxen, drum dancers, and dancing walruses, his works are often colored by their subjects’ props or profiles.

Panda Transformation by Pitseolak Qimirpik

Some don iPods or MP3 Players, while newer work features characters inspired by The Simpsons, Pokémon and flora. Qimirpik is falling in step with his generation’s multivalence, its double-speak, and winking referentiality. He seeks form in Inuit history, but roots his subjects in the new.

Make sure to visit the Online Shop or head over to the Craft Ontario Shop at 1106 Queen St W to check out Pitseolak Qimirpik's Featured work!