A third-generation Inuit artist based in Kinngait, Nunavut, Canada, Shuvinai Ashoona is best known for her highly personal and imaginative iconographic art. In this catalogue spanning a twenty-year career, Ashoonas imagery begins with closely observed naturalistic scenes of her Arctic home of Kinngait (formerly known as Cape Dorset), continuing a tradition begun by Ashoonas grandmother and cousin, also artists. Later, shifting to more monstrous and fantastical visions, her drawings imagine the past and present fused into a prophetic future: human-animal hybrid creatures, women birthing worlds, and mystical or otherworldly landscapes inspired by the Arctic terrain. Existing somewhere between dystopian and utopian, Ashoonas brightly coloured pencil crayon and ink drawings teem with life. The catalogue provides insight into Ashoonas practice, including select exhibition history, large-format illustrations and installation images, and several texts from Canadian and international authors.

This expansive catalogue accompanies The Power Plants major 2019 exhibitionShuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worldsorganized and circulated by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, and curated by Nancy Campbell, PhD, with assistance from Justine Kohleal, Assistant Curator, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery and was on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery February 22 – May 24, 2020.

Edited byGatane Verna
Introduction byNancy Campbell
Contributions byTarralik Duffy, Meeka Walsh, Michelle Gay, Robert Kardosh, and Justine Kohleal, Shary Boyle, Laura Demers, Jacques Des Rochers, Tarah Hogue, Christine Lalonde, Frances Loeffler, Roger Malbert, Gerald McMaster, Sarah Milroy, Wanda Nanibush, and Jocelyn Piirainen

344pages
10 x 12inches
ISBN 9783777434520
206 colour illustrations
Hardcover
Hirmer Publishers
2021