Shuvinai Ashoona: Holding on to Universes

Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow

Known for her colourful pencil drawings depicting folklore tales, memories of the past, visions of the future, human-animal hybrid creatures and women giving birth to worlds, Shuvinai Ashoona portrays a range of scenes from remembered familial rituals and traditions to mystical, imagined events. Her works often reflect upon the creation of new life, community and the magic of different worlds - connecting with people, animals, histories and contemporary cultures otherwise.

This exhibition brings together some of Shuvinai's lesser exhibited works, many of which depict her hometown of Kinngait (Cape Dorset) Nunavut in today's northern Canada. As a body of works, her drawings reflect the shift from life on the land and ice to settled communities, and the complexity of contemporary life in the wake of Arctic colonialism. As well as fictionalized, otherworldly scenes, this exhibition brings into focus Shuvinai's use of perspective and her depiction of everyday life. Many works in the show position the viewer (or artist) as voyeur, animal, hunter and participant. Depicting fantastical futures and complex realities in equal measure, her works reveal dramatic changes in the landscape, culture and agency of the so-called North.

About the Artist

Shuvinai Ashoona (born 1961, Kinngait, Nunavut, Canada) lives and works in Kinngait. Ashoona first came to prominence in the late 1990s, when her work was included in the 1997 Cape Dorset Annual Print Collection. Recent solo presentations of Ashoona’s work include Holding on to Universes at Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow (2020), Mapping Worlds, organized by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto (2019) and toured to venues across Canada, Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum, Iqaluit (2013), MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (2012), Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa (2009) and Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2006). She has been included in major group exhibitions including Esker Foundation, Calgary (2017), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2017), Mercer Union, Toronto (2016), National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2014), SITE Santa Fe (2014), 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012) and Massachusetts MoCA, North Adam (2012). Her work resides in a number of public collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Canadian Museum of History, Ottawa/Gatineau, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and National Museum of the American Indian, Washington. In 2018, Ashoona was recipient of the prestigious Gershon Iskowitz Prize.

Project Supporters

Supported by High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom. Special thanks to Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain and the collections of Martin Demers, Samantha Fienberg and Nancy Jain.