Jessie Oonark Artist

Jessie Oonark, CM OC FRSA ( ᔨᐊᓯ ᐅᓈᖅ; 2 March 1906 - 7 March 1985) was a prolific, influential Canadian Inuit artist of the Utkuhihalingmiut Utkuhiksalingmiut whose wall hangings, prints and drawings are in major collections including the National Gallery of Canada. She was born in 1906 in the Chantrey Inlet (Tariunnuaq) area, near theestuary of the Back River in the Keewatin District of the Northwest Territories (now Nunavut)—the traditional lands of the Utkukhalingmiut Utkukhalingmiut, Utkukhalingmiut (the people of the place where there is soapstone). Her artwork portrays aspects of the traditional hunter-nomadic life that she lived for over five decades, moving from fishing camp near the mouth of Back River on Chantrey Inlet in the Honoraru area to their caribou hunting camp in the Garry Lake area, living in winter snow houses (igloos) and caribou skin tents in the summer. Oonark learned early how to prepare skins and sew caribou skin clothing. They subsisted mainly on trout (lake trout and arctic char), whitefish, and Barren-ground caribou. The knife used by women, the ulu, their clothing, the kamik, the amauti were recurring themes in her work. Oonark has had a major museum retrospective with accompanying scholarly monograph. She, along with Pitseolak Ashoona and Kenojuak, are the only Inuit artists whose work has been studied so intensively. Despite a late start - she was 54 years old when her work was first published - she was a very active and prolific artist over the next 19 years, creating a body of work that won considerable critical acclaim and made her one of Canada's best known Inuit artists.