PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 25, 2020 Contact: Robert Kardosh Tel: 604-685-1934 Email: [email protected]

Shuvinai Ashoona: Vapourating February 22 – March 28, 2020

Vancouver, BC — The Marion Scott Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Shuvinai Ashoona. Opening February 22 and continuing until March 28, Shuvinai Ashoona: Vapourating brings together new and older works on paper produced over a 25-year period. The exhibition features some of the artist’s first drawings, presented alongside images produced within the last decade. Reflecting the full range of her distinctive expression, the presentation reveals the different ways in which Ashoona has remained true to her earliest expressive impulses over the course of her diverse artistic evolution. The exhibition also includes a new series of large format hand- coloured print editions being shown for the first time.

In the works in the exhibition, different worlds mix and collide. A large untitled drawing from 2016 pictures three groups of figures participating in what appears to be a northern version of a three-legged race. The unexceptional nature of the recreational activity contrasts with the, at times, outlandish forms of many of the participants. These include a green octopus-like creature with tentacles for legs and a white figure with multiple heads, various human and animal appendages and exposed male genitalia. Another drawing, from 2015, shows a similar group of human and human-like figures, some naked, lying prone and jigging for fish through cracks in the ice. In these images

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in which unusual beings are engaged in various mundane rituals and tasks, Ashoona brings the fantastical into direct conversation with the everyday.

Several works reflect Ashoona’s longstanding interest in representing underwater environments and aquatic wildlife—a world separate from the terrestrial one that humans occupy. In a monochromatic ink drawing from 1997, Ashoona portrays a pair of walrus swimming through some kelp, the scattered tops of clams visible on the sandy ocean floor. In a large coloured drawing from 2019, Ashoona revisits the same scene, employing an identical elevated perspective. Here, the artist has added a pair of spotted seals and a fancy orange fish of unknown origin into compositional mix. While related to the earlier version, the newer drawing highlights some of the ways in which Ashoona’s expression has evolved over time. In addition to the enhancements of colour and scale, the 2019 drawing exemplifies the artist’s trademark technique of dynamically cropping her images, resulting in compositions that simultaneously reveal and conceal information.

Some of Ashoona’s works portray the divisions or thresholds between worlds. Ashoona’s early interest in these transitional spaces is evident in a monochromatic ink drawing from 1997 depicting a shoreline divided by a row of densely drawn rocks. A human settlement comprised of a wood building and a traditional tent is visible on the land above the rocks, while below is the exposed beach at low tide, upon which kelp fronds lie, temporarily removed from their aquatic environment. A small number of people in -style parkas dig for clams in the sand, visitors to an alien intertidal world. A drawing from 2019 shows the divisions within and between human as opposed to natural worlds. In this large untitled work, Ashoona pictures an Inuit family clad in traditional skin garments standing across from a group of people in brightly coloured modern clothing, one of which is taking pictures tourist-style with a camera. The latter are clearly visitors to this icy northern world, whereas the Inuit are clearly one with it.

Although Ashoona rarely titles her works, textual elements in both English and the artist’s native Inuktitut appear regularly in her drawings. Ashoona’s early artistic interest in words and letters is visible in a monochromatic landscape from 1995. Close inspection of this otherwise unremarkable scene of everyday village life reveals a pair of small wooden boxes on the ground with the words “Other languages words” and “letters words” printed on their sides. In contrast to these almost hidden messages, verbal communication is a prominent feature of a drawing from 2007, in which the artist pictures a roll of toilet paper with an orange void in the middle. A wide range of phrases, including “Land of Toilet Paper” and “No Fighting,” appear on different sections of the tissue. Many of the phrases include biblical references.

The works in the exhibition feature many of Ashoona’s most common recurring motifs.

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These include countless clams (or gooey ducks), playing cards, eggs and her ever present globes resembling planet Earth as seen from space. The latter, often grouped together in unexpected places irrespective of scale, can be seen to function as a emblem for Ashoona’s expression as a whole, which is devoted to portraying different worlds as well as worlds within worlds.

Born in 1961 in (Cape Dorset) on Baffin Island, Shuvinai Ashoona has been exploring her distinctive artistic vision for more than two decades. Combining otherworldly and feminist sensibilities, Ashoona’s constantly evolving graphic expression has changed the face of contemporary . Several prominent public institutions have collected Ashoona’s work, including the National Gallery of Canada, The Art Gallery of , The Winnipeg Art Gallery, The Art Gallery and the Smithsonian. Ashoona was the 2018 recipient of the Prize at the AGO. Her work is currently featured in Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds, her first institutional show on the West Coast, on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery until May 24th. Shuvinai Ashoona: Vapourating is Ashoona’s sixth exhibition with MSG.

Shuvinai Ashoona: Vapourating opens Saturday, February 22 at the Marion Scott Gallery. A public opening will take place from 2:00 to 4:00 PM.

PRESS INQUIRIES: Please contact Robert Kardosh at [email protected] or by phone at 604-685-1934. High-resolution images are available upon request.

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image: Shuvinai Ashoona, untitled (settlement & shoreline), 1997/98, ink on paper, 20 x 26 in.

image: Shuvinai Ashoona, untitled (camera crew & family in traditional clothing), 2019, graphite, coloured pencil & ink on paper, 36.5 x 50.5 in.