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Lot description
GERMAINE ARNAKTAUYOK (1946-) IGLULIK (IGLOOLIK) The Beginning of Caribou, 2000s ink on heavy wove paper, 10 x 22.5 in (25.4 x 57.1 cm) titled and signed, "THE BEGINNING OF CARIBOU / GERMAINE ARNAKTAUYOK ᐊᕐᓇᑦᐅᔪᕐᒃ". Provenance Collection of John and Joyce Price, Seattle. There is an almost Edenic sense of stillness in The Beginning of Caribou, despite the story’s underlying tension of discovery and release from which Germaine Arnaktauyok draws her imagery. Throughout, Arnaktauyok uses colour with extraordinary boldness, but also tenderness. Warm orange browns, smoky pinks, bright turquoise blues, and lustrous blacks, applied with a precision that recalls pointillism, move gently across the herd, so that each animal feels distinct, yet fully part of a larger, harmonious world. The ground remains wide, pale, and pristine, allowing the image to breathe and giving the migration of animals a feeling of calm emergence rather than urgency. Above the figures, the coloured bands of sky shimmer with delicacy and atmosphere. Together, these elements produce an image of beauty, expansive in feeling and remarkable in its execution. References: Germaine Arnaktauyok explored this imagery in other works, including her etching and aquatint How Caribou Came to Be, reproduced in Neil Christopher, Unikkaaqtuat: An Introduction to Inuit Myths and Legends, (Iqaluit, NU: Inhabit Media, 2024), 50, where the story is also recounted. ND