Maudie Okittuq
Talurjuaq
This work, created by Maudie Okittuq from an oosik (walrus penis bone) as part of the Order of the Walrus Collection, commissioned by the Walrus Foundation, depicts a composite scene of four figures. From the bottom up, the first two are a male figure with sharp protruding teeth, perhaps tusks, topped by a figure that is half bird, half woman.
With a downturned mouth, her wings are tucked neatly—and tightly it appears—behind her. The third figure, with hind flippers pointed upward, is a seal sporting a rather distressed expression and cradling a dainty bird—the fourth figure—perched with wings outstretched. The piece, measuring only 10.5 centimetres around, has been exactingly carved by Okittuq, whose attention to detail is visible in the undulating curves of the man’s parka and the symmetrical notches cut into the seal creature’s foreflipper, as well as her command of the temperamental material. Bone, with its varying textures, has a propensity to crack or split. In Arvak (2017) this variance in density is subtly parsed through Okittuq’s deeper incisions around the seal’s rear flipper and between the man’s legs, revealing the open, honeycomb-like, spongy bone within.
Writing on the work of Okittuq in 1983, curator Darlene Coward Wight noted that it is “obvious that the raw carving material [of her works is] a powerful impetus to her imagination. Every piece of whalebone has a different shape and suggests subjects to her.”1 In this instance, the long, slender shape of the oosik has been transformed by the artist into a highly evocative, narrative piece, affirming that there are incredible forms hiding in bones, just waiting for artists to release them.