Padloo Samayualie
Born in 1977, Kinngait-based Padloo Samauyalie began drawing in high school, and was actively encouraged by her father, Johnny Tunnillie. She comes from a strong lineage in the arts, including sister Nicotye Samauyalie, mother Kudluajuk Ashoona and grandmother Keeleemeeomee Tunnillie.
Previously featured as part of the 2012 Cape Dorset print collection, has only recently devoted herself full-time time to drawing. The result is a prolific output of spare and angular architectural images reminiscent of Itee Pootoogook’s work alongside landscape studies, portraiture and stills of food and candy packaging. Samauyalie favours a flattened approach, collapsing birds-eye and frontal views to produce dynamic composite images with exceptional structure and detail. This technique is visible in Grandfather (2015), where features such as eyes, nose, ears and hair are shifted, layered and sutured together. Individual elements, rendered in crosshatch, brick and scale patterns, are connected with small appliqued patches attaching hair to skin.
All are punctuated with deep black marks and flat grey cutouts. Similarly striking uses of colour, saturation and texture are employed in Throat Singers: Qaunak Mikkigak & Timangia Petaulassie (2015). Here, two performers between songs, look out beyond either side of the frame. Our position as a member of a larger audience is signaled, cleverly collapsing the landscape beyond and the implied space of the image itself.
The artist has taken part in group exhibitions, most recently, a two-person show at Feheley Fine Arts in January of 2016. Padloo Samauyalie is distrivuted through Dorset Fine Arts and currently available at Inuit Gallery of Vancouver and Feheley Fine Arts.