Lot 13
Kenojuak Ashevak ᑭᓄᐊᔪᐊ ᐊᓯᕙ, CC, RCA (1927-2013)
Lot 13 Details
Kenojuak Ashevak ᑭᓄᐊᔪᐊ ᐊᓯᕙ, CC, RCA (1927-2013), Kinngait (Cape Dorset)
SIILAVUT, NUNAVUT (OUR ENVIRONMENT, OUR LAND), 1999
lithograph
titled, dated and numbered 70/99; artist's name in Roman and syllabics; diptych; unframed
overall 44.5 x 30 in — 113 x 76.2 cm; each sheet 22.25 x 30 in — 56.5 x 76.2 cm
Estimate $7,000-$9,000
Additional Images
Provenance:
Private Collection, Vermont, USA
Note:
The monumental diptych Siilavut, Nunavut (Our Environment, Our Land) by Kenojuak was commissioned to commemorate the inception of the new territory of Nunavut in 1999. In John A. Westren's brief 2007 essay on the image in Cape Dorset Prints A Retrospective: Fifty Years of Printmaking at the Kinngait Studios, he interprets the work as an image of a shared physical environment, but also of a shared psyche, noting: "The circumference of this circle is the horizon in all directions, and it is Our land, not My land. Whoever we are and wherever we are, we will always be at the centre of our limits of perception defined by a circle." (1)
The composition, spanning two full sheets of 22.25 x 30 paper, exhibits Kenojuak's vision of an interconnected environment, depicted on an impressively large scale.
1. Leslie Boyd Ryan, Cape Dorset Prints: A Retrospective Fifty Years of Printmaking at Kinngait Studios (Petaluma: Pomegranate Communications, 2007), 232-234.