ᓲᕕᓇᐃ ᐊᓲᓇ: ᓄᓇᙳᐊᓕᐅᕐᓂᖅ ᓄᓇᕐᔪᐊᙳᐊᓂᒃ
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery
A squid-like creature with multiple human faces and a pair of roiling human legs. A leaf-green woman with a porpoise tail carrying her baby while encircled by a host of chimeric figures. When considering ᓲᕕᓇᐃ ᐊᓲᓇ: ᓄᓇᙳᐊᓕᐅᕐᓂᖅ ᓄᓇᕐᔪᐊᙳᐊᓂᒃ
Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds, the graphic artist’s recent solo exhibition at
The Power Plant in Toronto, ON, the notion of mise en abyme becomes strangely appropriate. From the French expression for an image that contains copies of itself, in literature mise en abyme refers to a story that contains another story within it. The longer I contemplate the otherworldly tableaux that fill Mapping Worlds, the more the plurality invoked in the title resounds. How can a single drawing—or even a single image, for that matter—contain such multiplicity? And how does the cacophony of images speak to the placement of the artist’s practice within broader worlds of contemporary art?
As is often the case with mise en abyme, many of Ashoona’s pieces initially appear deceptively straightforward. Though some drawings employ more conventional compositions—such as the perpendicular cruise ship in Sinking Titanic (2012), inspired by the iconic 1990s film by James Cameron— a sense of latent energy expands across the page in all of the works on view. Colourful palettes—resplendent with living greens, pinks, blues—and dark ink outlines, draw my eye around the works, revealing halfhidden clues and insights into Ashoona’s complex worldview. The juxtaposition of realistic scenes, such as a series of tightly cropped human portraits, with fantastical globe motifs and chimeras, as in Composition (Attack of the Tentacle Monsters) (2015), underscores the ar tist’s unique ability to make the strange appear routine and to simultaneously reveal the surreal underpinnings of the familiar.
The coloured pencil, graphite and ink drawn globes that abound in Mapping
Worlds, curated by Dr. Nancy Campbell, are earthly, yet do not depict the planet as we know it. Mostly comprised of familiar representations of the planet, the terrestrial formations in Ashoona’s drawings recall sites germane to science fiction or fantasy. The scale and inhabitants of these mysterious territories are likewise unknown to us viewers, though I sense that the human figures within them may be possessed of greater insight. The characters appear to be guardians or inhabitants (or both) of these private worlds.
In several drawings, globes appear either directly connected to the human body, as with the irises of the figure in The World
In Her Eyes (2011), or as objects en masse, as in Shovelling Worlds (2013), in which a man shovels dozens of globes into a large container. The apparent tension between
idiosyncrasy—each miniature world is subtly different— and unanimity—they each obliquely reflect our own Earth—aptly embodies the negotiation of individual and collective vision in Ashoona’s oeuvre. Though her subject matter, which includes mythological beings, humananimal birthing scenes, Arctic landscapes, and vignettes from Titanic, is vastly different from the settings described by authors such as Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, or George R.R. Martin, Ashoona shares a proclivity for vivid allegory with these canonical world builders.
While I am initially struck by the surreal scenes and hybrid creatures, an underlying thread of interpersonal and interspecies connection contributes critical depth to the work. For Ashoona, these links are crucial to the environments in her work with connectedness often depicted via circularity. This is perhaps most apparent in Composition (People, Animals and the World Holding Hands) (2007–8), which features nine figures holding hands in a loop around a grizzly bear, polar bear, seal and Arctic char. The analogous scale of the figures in
Composition also brings to mind questions concerning human impact upon the environment. At The Power Plant, Ashoona’s drawings are hung only metres from Lake Ontario, which glimmers in the surprisingly cool March sun. The day is beautiful and bracing, though no doubt very different than the cold weather depicted in so many of the artist’s works. Seen from this wider lens, Ashoona’s oeuvre points to new ways of considering cross-species links, responsibilities and failures. Whether or not she intends to draw attention to global climate issues, the representations of close ties between human and non-human worlds and between changing natural landscapes and pop culture read exigently across contexts.
It is refreshing to have the opportunity to consider Ashoona’s distinct handling of these topics given her frequent contextualization with famous family members, as in Three Women, Three Generations (1999), with Pitseolak Ashoona, OC, RCA (1904–1983) and Napachie Pootoogook (1938–2002), and again in Ashoona: Third
Wave (2006–7) with cousins Annie Pootoogook (1969– 2016) and Siassie Kenneally (1969–2018), or as only one of many voices in international group exhibitions. Within these wider narratives enveloping Mapping
Worlds, the memory of Annie Pootoogook’s own 2006 solo show at The Power Plant looms large. The self-titled show was the gallery’s last solo exhibition by an Inuk artist, bestowing even greater anticipation for this spotlight on Ashoona. I also wonder what stories within stories would have unfurled had some of Ashoona’s more monumental drawings, early pen-and-ink pieces or collaborative works been included. In the end, we are left pondering whether Mapping Worlds only presents one facet of an artist’s compelling oeuvre and eagerly awaiting future chapters.