Selections from the Collection: Shuvinai Ashoona on view in the Annex

Shuvinai Ashoona (Inuit, b. 1961) is an artist from Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset) on Dorset Island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. Ashoona began her art career in the early 1990s through her involvement with the community-owned West Baffin Cooperative, which has functioned since 1959 as a central meeting point for Kinngait artists, including members of Ashoona’s family, providing materials, funding, and guidance to community members looking to develop their practice and learn from each other.

Ashoona’s early work was focused on documenting elements of the natural world and the Arctic landscape. In the early 2000s, her subject matter expanded and she began to draw more heavily on her rich imagination and taste for the surreal. While still rooted in her personal experience of the landscape, these works introduce extraordinary imagined worlds in which dreamlike imagery and elements of Inuit mythology are interwoven with scenes of everyday life—often illustrating her community engaging in collective activities. Through her complex compositions that move between the fantastical and the real, Ashoona conveys an intricate personal vision that speaks to communities both local and global.