Where HAVE
you goNE,
Annie Pootoogook?
She shot to fame, then vanished just as quickly. What happened to Nunavut’s
greatest modern artist – and why? Jasmine Budak set off to find out...
My search for Annie Pootoogook begins at Feheley Fine Arts, an elegant red-brick gallery in downtown Toronto that deals in high-end Inuit art. The owner, Patricia Feheley,
is a veteran in this business. Slight and stylish, she has the refined air you’d expect of
a gallery owner. She became one of Pootoogook’s most fervent champions as soon as
she laid eyes on the artist’s ink-and-crayon drawings in Cape Dorset more than a decade ago. She recalls going “absolutely crazy” for them: “It was the base honesty. She
was drawing exactly what she wanted; she didn’t care what other people were doing.”
The images offered a blunt, sometimes jarring, portrayal of modern life in an Arctic
settlement: Ski-Doos and Coleman stoves, TV and sex, alcohol and domestic abuse.
The style was fresh, uninhibited, modern. There were no dancing bears; none of the
trite themes that the Inuit art industry has long relied on. Giddy with her discovery, Feheley left Cape Dorset with half-a-dozen of Pootoogook’s drawings, which she showed
in an exhibition called “The Unexpected.” The pictures were a hit and all of them sold.
Over the next few years, Pootoogook’s work would catch the eye of the contemporary
art world and rocket the young artist to fame. >
bill Ritchie
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W here ha v e y ou gone , A nnie P ootoogook ?
W here ha v e y ou gone , A nnie P ootoogook ?
WATCHING THE IRAQ WAR ON TV, 2003
A FIGHT, 2003
But now, walking through Feheley’s sunlit gallery,
KINNGAIT STUDIOS is Cape Dorset’s printmaking
“She won a lot
passing images by other Dorset artists, Pootoogook’s
centre, part of the long-running art cooperative that
of money, people is the community’s economic lifeblood. It was estabdrawings are conspicuously absent. Feheley hasn’t
seen her since those heady times, and contact by Pootlished in 1959 as the West Baffin Eskimo Co-op, the
said her name a culmination of government efforts to encourage an
oogook has been sporadic and from always-changing
phone numbers. Feheley puts it kindly: “She’s not foArctic “handicraft” industry and create an economy
lot; it was her
cused on her art right now.”
for the newly acculturated Inuit. Today, it supports as
Revered for her raw depictions of contemporary
many as 200 graphic and sculpture artists, and has
Andy Warhol
Arctic life, Pootoogook hasn’t actually lived in the
turned out some of the biggest names in Inuit art, like
moment. But she Kenojuak Ashevak and Kananginak Pootoogook, AnNorth in years. Five years ago, after winning one of
Canada’s biggest art prizes, the Sobey Award, she took
nie’s uncle. When I call the studio, I’m put in touch
was young and
her $50,000 prize and headed south. The last Feheley
with See Pootoogook, one of the stone-cut printers
had heard, Pootoogook was living in Ottawa. Secondand Annie’s older brother. Over the clamour of backalone and she
hand accounts reveal that she bunks with friends or
ground noise, See tells me he usually hears from his
crashes in shelters. There have been reports of bendsister every couple of weeks. “She’s supposed to call
had problems.”
ers and bad relationships, but also fleeting moments
me next Thursday,” he says, vowing to pass along my
BILL RITCHIE
of creativity, when she holes up somewhere and
message. He’s kind and accommodating, but I don’t
KINNGAIT STUDIO MANAGER
draws, influenced now not only by the Dorset milieu,
hold out much hope. Even if he remembers to tell her
but scenes from her urban life. “Annie has always said that she draws
– even if he hasn’t lost the scrap of paper where he scrawled my numonly what she knows,” Feheley says. “Drawing is such a big part of
ber – there’s no guarantee she’ll call.
who she is, so I have faith that she’ll be back.”
From what I’ve seen of her in books and documentaries, PootoAs a former Northerner and longtime fan of Inuit art, I followed
ogook, 43, is a small woman, with almond-shaped eyes and a face
Pootoogook’s path to stardom, and was intrigued by her mysterious
roughened by life. She speaks in basic, broken English, which she
disappearance. I could only guess at why she broke from the art scene:
picked up while travelling in the south. She was born in Cape Dorher sudden rise from obscurity to it-girl, the exhilarating money, the
set in 1969, a decade after the art co-op was founded. Unlike her
ongoing hardships of living in a difficult place. While the modern art
three brothers, all of whom draw or carve, Pootoogook came to art
world was ready to usher in a new era of Inuit art, Pootoogook herself
late, when she was already 28. She had a turbulent youth, spent too
may not have been ready. I hoped to find her and ask her myself.
much time with the wrong guys, and followed one of them to Nunavik
briefly. When she returned to Dorset in the late ’90s,
scene, however mundane or horrific, is presented in
“ANNIE HAD
she was encouraged to try drawing, which seemed to
the same understated tone. Images of her family sharALL THE BOXES
run in the family.
ing seal meat are given the same weight as the shockAnnie’s grandmother, Pitseolak Ashoona, who died
ing true-life scene of an RCMP officer being shot.
CHECKED: she was
in 1983, was renowned for her drawings documenting
As much as the art world took to Pootoogook’s diboth life on the land and the early settlement years.
rect
and divergent style, the nurturing role of the co-op
a woman, she was
Annie’s father, Eegyvudluk Pootoogook, was a printand the marketing prowess of southern dealers like
maker and carver, and her mother, Napachie, was also
Feheley were essential in launching her career. At first,
Inuit, she was
a respected graphic artist who inked scenes depicting
her drawings weren’t considered saleable by Dorset
young and
the rapid changes in recent Inuit history. Napachie’s
Fine Arts, the co-op’s Toronto marketing arm, which
later works became increasingly dark. She was forthdistributes art to retailers and coordinates a yearly cataarticulate, she
right about the grim realities of pre-settlement life: inlogue of limited-edition prints. “Annie’s work was confanticide, forced marriage, starvation. Her candid style
sidered a bit too edgy for the print collection,” recalls
was doing conis often credited with inspiring her daughter to depict
Bill Ritchie, the studio manager at Kinngait. In those
her own hard realities, not on the land, but in modern temporary stuff.” early years, he encouraged Pootoogook to draw what
Cape Dorset.
she knew, and helped her with some of the technical
BILL RITCHIE
Domestic abuse is a prominent theme in Pootoaspects of drawing. When Patricia Feheley arrived on
KINNGAIT STUDIO MANAGER
ogook’s work – chilling scenes of a man raising a bat
one of her twice-yearly trips to Dorset, it was Ritchie
to a woman, or a husband kicking his wife in front of their children.
who urged her to check out the brimming shelf of a new artist named
But Pootoogook wasn’t the first to capture the discord and ugliness of
Annie Pootoogook.
modern Arctic life. As early as the 1970s, artist Pudlo Pudlat was drawFeheley is a regular in Cape Dorset; she’s been going there since she
ing scenes that mixed helicopters with muskox. Later, Ningeokuluk
was 16, when she first accompanied her father, the late Budd Feheley,
Teevee, also of Dorset, addressed modern issues like climate change:
an advertising executive who fell in love with Inuit art in the early ’50s,
Her “Sedna by the Sea” shows a haggard sea goddess smoking a cigajust as it was being introduced to the world. He helped establish the
rette amid a polluted, ravaged coastline. But it was Pootoogook who
Dorset co-op and later opened Feheley Fine Arts, which Patricia took
became the poster child for contemporary Inuit art, thanks mainly to
over in 1992. Like her father, Feheley holds a deep respect for Inuit art
good timing and the vagaries of the art-world appetite. Critics and coland has worked, along with a few other dealers, to lift the genre beyond
lectors were taken with her almost caricature-ish style, in which every
souvenirs and the tired traditional themes that the industry was built
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W here ha v e y ou gone , A nnie P ootoogook ?
MEMORY OF MY LIFE: BREAKING BOTTLES, 2001-02
on. Her approach has been to apply to Northerners the
this modern, in-your-face aesthetic had the potential
“Annie has
mechanisms of the southern art world, cultivating indito invigorate not only Inuit art but also to shake up the
always said that contemporary art world.
vidual artists and promoting them with expertly curated
shows. It’s the main reason Feheley goes to Dorset so
Savvy and well-connected, Feheley had the ear of
she draws only important people, including Nancy Campbell, one of
much: Visiting Kinngait Studios keeps her on the pulse
of undiscovered talent. By the late ’90s she’d begun to
what she knows. the curators at Toronto’s prestigious Power Plant Confeel that, if Inuit art was going to survive in the contemtemporary Art Gallery. Campbell took to Pootoogook’s
porary art market, it needed a star.
Drawing is such style and in 2006 launched a momentous solo show.
After “The Unexpected” show, which proved to
Pootoogook’s exposure to a contemporary art crowd
a big part of
Feheley that Pootoogook’s drawings had commercial
sparked wider commercial interest and an unstopappeal, they got to work introducing her to the world.
pable momentum: an artist-in-residency in Scotland,
who she is, so I
“Moving Forward: Works on Paper by Annie Pootothe Sobey Award, a National Gallery acquisition, a
ogook” ran at Feheley’s gallery for a month in 2003,
have faith that travelling solo exhibition that culminated at the Smithenjoying strong reviews and sales. Two years later ansonian’s National Museum of the American Indian
other show followed, featuring Pootoogook and her
in New York City. In 2007 Pootoogook was invited
she’ll be back.”
mother, Napachie.
to Documenta, a quirky but acclaimed expo of global
Patricia Feheley
It was around this time when I saw my first Pootocontemporary art hosted every five years in Kassel, GerGALLERY OWNER
ogook drawing. I was in Yellowknife, working for Up
many. There, her drawings showed under the banner of
Here, when the catalogue for the 2005 Dorset print collection landed
modern – not Inuit or “native” – art, which was unprecedented for an
on my desk. It included a Pootoogook print called “Briefcase,” a
Inuit artist, advancing the notion that Inuit art could be contemporary,
Warhol-esque checkerboard of colourful men’s briefs, which, in the
even avant-garde. Her works appeared in slick catalogues and were
context of the collection’s predictable Arctic imagery, was delightfully
discussed in high-minded critiques. Here, it seemed, was an Inuit artout of place. As a writer who’d covered Northern art for several years,
ist being taken seriously. “Annie had all the boxes checked: she was a
I’d been exposed to a lot of the greats: Kenojuak Ashevak and her
woman, she was Inuit, she was young and articulate, she was doing
famous owls, the masterful carvings of Kiawak Ashoona, the bold
contemporary stuff,” says Ritchie of Pootoogook’s sudden appeal.
graphics of Jessie Oonark. Their work was inspired by a distant time
Pootoogook’s most recent solo exhibition took place in Kingston,
on the land with its myths and animals; Pootoogook drew public
Ontario in 2011. But, says Ritchie, it featured “all old stuff.” By then
housing and the frozen-food aisle at the grocery store. For Feheley,
– seemingly as quickly as she’d exploded – “Annie had dried up.” >
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W here ha v e y ou gone , A nnie P ootoogook ?
So far, the closest I’ve come to
Pootoogook is flipping through her unfinished drawings in the Ottawa townhouse
where she sometimes comes to draw. Feheley
led me to this place, a sort of halfway house
and makeshift studio for Inuit living in Ottawa. It’s owned by Greg Kangas, an autobody tradesman with a hulking frame, military-short hair and an obsessive reverence for
Inuit art. He discovered it only two years ago,
and now buys, trades and collects carvings
like hockey cards. Kangas is the person who’s
had the most contact with Pootoogook lately.
“Pat [Feheley] asked me to look up Annie,” he
says. “She comes to the house to draw once
in awhile, and when she is in despair I try to
encourage her.”
Behind a dresser in his bedroom, Kangas
stores Pootoogook’s recent drawings: four in
her usual theme of Dorset life, and one unfinished scene of three carvers in a field with
a generator. The field is a two-minute drive
from Kangas’ house; the carvers are Pootoogook’s brother Pauloosie, the late Mark Pitseolak, also from Dorset, and the renowned Manasie Akpaliapik from Arctic Bay. A few times
a week, they grind soapstone in the overgrown
swath of grass Kangas has taken upon himself
to rent for this purpose. (They used to carve
in his driveway until the neighbours complained.) Through his oddly devoted relationship with these artists, Kangas has become my
only promising link to Pootoogook.
After a few days spent leaving messages at
her usual hangouts, Kangas finally gets a call
from Pootoogook. She’s been in Wakefield,
a Quebec village 20 minutes from Ottawa.
He offers her $100, and Pootoogook agrees
to come to the house the following morning
to finish her drawing and speak with me. My
elation is weighed down by the knowledge
that this is all very tenuous. If she didn’t show
up – if she avoided the media, if she dodged
all the questions – I could hardly blame her.
It’s apparent from her drawings that
Pootoogook has been beaten down by life,
and that she’s used her art to deal with past
trauma. She once said she’s able to “throw
away” a painful experience when she puts
it on paper, and that drawing “really helps
my life.” The accompanying fame has also
altered her: “I was nothing, but today I am
something,” she said in the 2006 documentary Annie Pootoogook. “I know now that I am
important to people. It is a very big thing to
me – [being] an artist.” In the film, Pootoogook throws around the word “artist” a lot,
as though it has just occurred to her that she
is one – that this is what people in the south
48 up here JUNE 2012
call you when they like your drawings.
“It was an interesting lesson for me to
see what happens when you become the darling of the art world,” Feheley says of Pootoogook’s rise. “Suddenly she’s in a documentary, she’s going to the Basel Art Fair, there’s
books and a film, all in five or six years. I
often wonder if we hadn’t done this, would
it have been better for her?” Bill Ritchie has
wondered the same thing. “No one could
have seen it coming. I think it was just the
perfect storm,” he says. “She won a lot of
money, people said her name a lot; it was her
Andy Warhol moment. But she was young
and alone and she had problems.” The sudden wealth, too, must have made it easy to
leave. Dorset is a small, sometimes claustrophobic community, where Pootoogook has
lived most of her life. The south is alluring,
different – an easier place to walk around
with a lot of money, and perhaps an easier
place to spend it.
Ritchie still uses Pootoogook as a “cautionary tale” when other Dorset artists fantasize about becoming an art star in the south,
or of leaving the safety net of the co-op to
see if they can make it in the big city. On the
other hand, for them, Pootoogook’s success
has illustrated that they can become capitalA artists who have their own shows, win
awards, get rich and famous. Perhaps more
importantly, it’s also shown that they can
work outside traditional Inuit styles, and can
be freed from what was once a narrow genre.
The day after Pootoogook agrees to meet
with me, I wait at a friend’s house for Kangas
to call and let me know she’s arrived. But the
day passes without word from her. I stare at
my phone like a love-struck teenager. And I
must have called Kangas a dozen times to see
if she’d called him.
I decide to change my train ticket to buy
another day, on the slim chance that Pootoogook is running late. The next day, however,
is the same – nothing. Kangas is overly apologetic, as though he’s let me down. I wonder
if Pootoogook has simply forgotten or, worse,
if she’s in no state for an interview. I’m reminded of one of her early drawings, called
“Old Life; New Life,” which depicts two versions of the same woman standing side by
side. The one on the left has a black heart, a
tiny devil hovering at her shoulder and a rose
wilting at her feet. On the right, the woman
has a red heart, an angel at her shoulder and
a blooming rose – a rather literal portrayal of
a saved woman. If this refers to Pootoogook’s
own experience, I can’t help but wonder
which side she would say she’s on.
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