Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook died almost 10 years ago, but her haunting work is still winning accolades. This week, the drawing “Man Abusing His Partner” got the nod from prestigious art publication ARTnews as one of the best artworks of the 21st century.
This autobiographical piece depicts a moment from Pootoogook’s life when she was attacked by a partner. Two-and-a-half decades later, Pootoogook would die under murky circumstances; her body was found in Ottawa’s Rideau River and the police declared it a suspicious death.
“Annie’s story is both elevating and tragic, her success as a contemporary artist cut short by an untimely death. Why we should be hopeful is that she left a significant legacy, that’s why we’re having this conversation now,” says Pauloosie Kowmageak, president of the West Baffin Cooperative, Canada’s oldest Inuit-owned social enterprise, of which Pootoogook was once a member.
“During her lifetime, she wanted to tell us stories and now posthumously, that voice is just as strong. Her work will continue to bring attention to important social issues, like missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and that’s a testament to both the lasting power of art and the gravitas of Annie Pootoogook.”
When it came time to choose artworks for their list, according to ARTnews editor Anne Doran, one criteria was that there had to something in the artist’s work that hadn’t been seen before, something surprising. Pootoogook, along with her mother and grandmother, was one of the first Inuit artists to incorporate autobiographical content into her art, Doran said.
“So that was exciting to see. And Pootoogook, in particular, was willing to address difficult subjects such as abuse and addiction,” said Doran. “(Her artwork) is raw, direct and honest, and was tackling real-life subjects head on.”
Pootoogook hailed from Kinngait (Cape Dorset) in Nunavut, which Kowmageak dubs “a tiny community of 1,500 inhabitants in the remoteness of the Canadian Arctic — we’re a fly-in only community some 2,500 kilometres almost directly north of Toronto.” But Pootoogook was embraced by museums, galleries and other exhibition platforms in Canada and beyond.
“Her work documented the experiences of living in the Arctic, the everyday and commonplace, but particularly some of the challenges of contemporary Inuit life,” Kowmageak said.
“Annie’s raw esthetic and frank storytelling makes the work an important part of the Inuit art continuum. The job of an artist is to sometimes challenge and Annie took that job very seriously. As someone from the community, I could often see an average Kinngait afternoon represented in her work, but then I would see something extraordinary and perhaps troubling.
“Both those depictions are important because it speaks to a duality of experience and doesn’t shelter us from the more disturbing aspects of life. These are themes that should play out in artwork and, in turn, those works of art should provoke us to think more deeply about those themes, whether that means feeling hopeful or uneasy.”
