Itee Pootoogook: Hymns to the Silence McMichael Canadian Art Collection
Though Itee Pootoogook’s (1951–2014) careful drawings of quiet interiors and empty landscapes have found an enthusiastic audience amongst collectors, until now, there has not been an exhibition considering his expansive body of work. In advance of the late artist’s first major solo exhibition Itee Pootoogook: Hymns to the Silence, curator Nancy Campbell discusses Pootoogook’s work, skill and what to expect from the show: Itee Pootoogook was a bit of an outlier. What I found in doing my research for the exhibition is that he focused mostly on capturing moments of quiet. His coloured pencil and graphite drawings are a meditation on stillness and calm, with an incredible economy of line. He started drawing late in life but amassed quite a large body of work in a rather short time. Pootoogook began drawing in the early 2000s and worked closely with the late Tim Pitsiulak (1967–2016), who similarly recorded scenes of hunters and used photography in his drawings. Pootoogook was an incredible draftsman and mastered black paper like no other artist in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU. The dark paper suited his minimal compositions rendered with a limited palette. The exhibition focuses on these quiet moments, but also shows some occasions in which he diverted and experimented with geometric compositions and other themes.