Contemporary Artists for Kids: Kenojuak Ashevak
There is no word for art. We say it is to transfer something from the real to the unreal. I am an owl and I am happy owl. I like to make people happy and everything happy. I am the light of happiness and I am a dancing owl." (Kenojuak Ashevak)
At Pop up Art School, we love sharing contemporary artists with kids. It's an opportunity to open their eyes to other parts of the world. Kenojuak is our current artist spotlight in Art Club. We chose her because her art is simple, textural and features animals that are indigenous to her home in the Arctic Circle of Canada.
Kenojuak Ashevak used animals as her subjects and arranged them in fantastical ways that aren't natural. The animals stand on each other's backs and embrace each other. Often, they have geometric shapes sprouting from their backs and tails. They are natural, but at the same time otherworldly.
Kenojuak Ashevak was born in 1927, in an igloo on the southern coast of Baffin Island in Canada. From those humble beginnings, she went on to have an international career in art and is one of Canada's most famous Inuit artists. In the 1970s, her print The Enchanted Owl was chosen for a Canadian postage stamp.
Kenojuak began drawing in the early 1950s. Later in the decade, author and filmmaker James Houston opened a graphic arts workshop in Kinngait and invited Kenojuak to join a collective of Inuit artists.
In her artwork, she depicted many animals indigenous to the Arctic. The animals are drawn in a simplified manner, often with radiating geometric shapes. She frequently used symmetry in her images, or placed many animals in one picture in a whimsical style. Her style is bold and graphic and she often used negative space as part of the composition. When looking at her work, we can talk about symbolism and creating texture with small marks.
She worked in a variety of art media, most often in graphite (pencil), felt tip pens (markers), printmaking and sometimes in sculpture and stained glass. Her art has been exhibited in Canada, the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Sweden, South Korea and Japan among others. Kenojuak passed away in 2013.
All images used are courtesy of Dorset Fine Arts
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