Adam Alorut William Noah

Adam Alorut (1980–2020)

Adam Alorut, a talented multidisciplinary ar tist who specialized in carving stone, bone and antler, passed away in August 2020. Under the tutelage of his father, well-known sculptor Morris Alorut, Adam learned to carve at a young age and eventually expanded his practice to include a range of media from sculpture to jeweller y, all uniquely distinguishable by his keen eye for detail. Alorut is known for his ar tfully and finely car ved human hair, fish scales and bird feathers, all intricately captured in his richly tex tured works in stone and bone.

Born in Iqaluit, NU, and spending much of his adult life in Ottawa, ON, Alorut created a body of work that pays homage to his homelands and culture, and one influenced by many of the stories he encountered while living in the South. The relationship between good and evil developed as a common theme for the ar tist, a dualit y that manifested more sharply in his later sculptural works. These works are well-regarded on the local and national level: his whale ver tebrae carving Spirit (2018) was acquired by the City of Ottawa Ar t Collection in 2019, and his 2010 piece Spiritual

War fare was acquired in 2011 by the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, ON.

In 2017, Alorut was selected as one of five carvers for the Usuaq Carving Project, a partnership between The Walrus and TD Bank. Alorut will be fondly remembered as an innovator in the contemporary Inuit ar t landscape who used his medium to share stories with Inuit and non-Inuit alike across the North and South.

William Noah (1943–2020)

Prominent graphic artist William Noah of Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake), NU, passed away in July 2020. An inventive and creative print artist and painter, Noah occupied a unique space in the Qamani’tuaq art landscape as both a creator and an arts administrator. Noah was a regularly featured artist in the Baker Lake Annual Print Collections and was included in exhibitions across the United States and Canada. Noah was encouraged to draw from an early age by his mother, the renowned artist Jesse Oonark, OC, RCA (1906–1985), and later learned the art of printmaking, becoming a printer in 1965. While prolific as a solo artist, much of his work was the result of frequent collaborations with his wife and fellow artist, Martha Noah. His work primarily focused on Inuit stories, Arctic landscapes and the animals which inhabited them, and he created pieces with a bright and distinctive colour palette best exemplified by his unique “x-ray” drawings—colourful cross-sectioned depictions of people and animals. Noah advocated for Inuit artists as a politician, arts administrator and active community leader. He was a Member of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly from 1979–1982, served as mayor of Qamani’tuaq twice, from 1978-79 and again between 1996-97, and was President of the Board of Directors of Canadian Arctic Producers in 1978-79. Along with Sheila and Jack Butler, he formed the Art and Cold Cash Collective, interrogating how Inuit artists were encouraged to market their culture as a means of survival. Noah’s work has been exhibited extensively across North America and is par t of the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, ON, the Indigenous Ar t Centre at Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada and the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, QC, among many others. In 2012 he was recognized for his work with a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. A prominent arts and community leader, Noah will be dearly missed for his contributions as an artist as well as for his advocacy for other Inuit artists.