Nick Sikkuark: A Celebration
Marion Scott Gallery
A keen eye for detail and deft ability with coloured pencils, oilstick, ink, graphite and more are discernable in this exhibition of works by the late Nick Sikkuark (1943–2013). Some 30 works reveal his craftsmanship as well as his devotion to land, animals and community. While renowned for his sculptures, Sikkuark’s graphic works render the world both simple and complex—surreal yet inescapably tangible. The more time one spends with these works, the more they relay the artist’s particular focus on the entanglements between the natural and supernatural worlds.
Sikkuark typically drew the land as a vast, treeless expanse evident in an untitled work from 2003 that depicts a sunset over an expanse of water. At its centre, a large iceberg looms against a sky of orange, yellow and grey flecks. Below, the sea’s current moves in brown, blue and green. At the edge of the iceberg, water laps translucently while the sun subtly peaks from behind its edge.
Untitled (2005) could be yet another coastal drawing with water and rocky promontory, except that 13 tiny eruptions of flame punctuate the scene. Moving closer— always necessary with Sikkuark’s work— two faces appear to float in the water blowing the sea upwards into the air. In the distance, atop the cliff, two forms—whether inuksuit, shamans or humans—survey the action below. Similarly, anthropomorphic forms emerge from the colourful stainedglass swatches in Untitled (Igloo) (2011). Here, a kaleidoscope of colours reveals a bear, foxes, fish, seals and human figures as they step or float beyond the edges of the structure. Read together, these drawings
are a celebration of the harmony between humanity and nature and are indicative of the shamanic forces running throughout Sikkuark’s work—uniting fire, water, air and earth.
Such forces are also evident in a remarkable untitled drawing from 2005 of a lone hunter trudging along the shore—camping gear strapped to his back, a bow held in his right mitted hand. Within the sky’s pale purple, blue and yellow expanse, a wispy figure mirrors the lone wanderer. The pair are joined by a third companion, a diminutive figure walking behind the larger hunter and carrying a spear. Together, these three figures create a mysterious, haunting image.
Further references to the bonds between the natural and human worlds appear in a large work from 2013, where blue pencil undulates across and around the page in arabesques evocative of Henri Matisse’s paper cut-outs from the late 1940s. From within the patterning, a large, slightly stooped, parka-clad figure stands out, a harpoon close at hand. As the outline of a large iceberg beyond comes into focus, we see this intricate blue-white patterning is the water and the ice on which the hunter awaits his prey.
Amidst these landscapes and depictions of shamanic power, a suite of drawings from 2004 presents jolly humans and gleeful grotesques. These curious figures thematically connect to two untitled works from 2011 that are especially surreal. In one, a man leads a large four-legged creature with a lean torso, claws and monstrous head by a rope. In another, a standing clawed behemoth, drawn in acid green, save for tiny fire-red eye slits, looms. These drawings relate to the lone sculpture in the exhibition: a four-legged creature carved from caribou antler and skull, with a muskox-fur mane, from whose head a fish-like form emerges.
Considering the breadth of work on display, how do we reconcile the tenderness of Sikkuark’s portraits with the ferocity of his grotesques or the quiet of some landscapes with the eruptions of fire and shamanic power? In light of the artist’s belief in the unity of these natural, supernatural and human forces, such questions require us to look closely for possible answers in Sikkuark’s complex world—and, in turn, our own.