Shuvinai Ashoona
In a series of four new aquatints by Shuvinai Ashoona, RCA, a person dressed for the cold in their parka, hat, scarf and mittens sits on a stack of two rocks, holding a giant mollusk to their side. The person looks out at us— as if this were the most natural relationship. Meanwhile, two other clam feet stick out of the sand that buries the rest of their shelled bodies. The composition is off centre across each of the prints in the series, which Ashoona has decorated with lively brush marks depicting waves in one, a rose garden in another, a bed of clams and a series of small, colourful splotches.
This brushwork is a new development for the artist. If you’ve been following Ashoona’s practice, her incredible drawings in ink, pencil and pencil crayon form a distinctive aesthetic now. Her exhibition Mapping Worlds at the Vancouver Art Gallery in British Columbia on view this past spring and fall was a knockout featuring dozens of her drawings. I brought my painting students to the show and they loved it. “This is by far the best show I’ve ever seen,” one student exclaimed. What I appreciate so much about these new aquatints is her ease of expressing—with her composition— and how she embodies—in her practice— comfort with the uncomfortable.
Could there be a clam more out of its shell than this one? Any time I have touched a clam, well, it clammed up—shutting itself up while waiting to be left alone. Yet this clam’s foot is flopped toward the seated figure who holds it. Ashoona’s brushwork is similarly unafraid; there is experimentation, play and delight in her marks.
For myself, as an artist and an educator, I am eager to devote time to investigate creative practices like Ashoona’s, which continually grow and change. The biggest questions this series of clams raise for me are: How does one get this comfortable with the unfamiliar? How do you get out of your shell?
In 2017, I hosted a public conversation with Ashoona about her practice at the Aboriginal Gathering Place at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, BC. The excitement around her talk was exceptional, bringing in three full classes as well as faculty from across the school and guests in the wider community. Ashoona and I sat at the centre of the room with students radiating out from around us. With no audio system that day, everyone leaned in to catch what Ashoona shared about her work.
Afterward my friend and colleague Hannah Jinkling invited me to co-deliver a drawing unit where we studied Ashoona’s approach to drawing. With Jinkling’s class, we watched the short documentary Ghost Noise (2010) in the studio. In the film, Ashoona talks about the hesitation she feels towards picking up the pencil laying on the table before her. “It’s scary!” she admits. She quickly follows it with “but it’s not that scary.” I have this written out on a 5×8” card and posted on my studio vision board.
For myself, and for my students, being reminded that, “it’s not that scary” resonates with my aim to have an approach like Ashoona’s, which acknowledges apprehension, but cer tainly doesn’t dwell on it. For me, these aquatints act as a guide—a glance towards doubt on the way to new and exciting work.
Could there be a clam more out of its shell than this one? Any time I have touched a clam, well, it clammed up— shutting itself up while waiting to be left alone. Yet this clam’s foot is flopped toward the seated figure who holds it.
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Mark Iglolior te is an interdisciplinary artist of Inuit ancestry from Nunatsiavut, Labrador. His artistic work is primarily painting and drawing. He currently teaches at Emily Carr University of Ar t + Design in Vancouver, BC.