Janet Kigusiuq (Inuit, born in 1926, Garry Lake, Canada; died in 2005, Baker Lake, Canada) began to draw in the late 1960s. She worked in various media throughout her career, from drawings to prints to wall hangings and collages. Her subject matter referred to the traditional life she lived until settling in Qamani’tuaq / Baker Lake. Traditional material and social culture provided imagery, as did myths and legends. These themes are echoed in her appliqué and embroidery wall hangings. In the last decade of her life, Kigusiuq began to create collages out of tissue paper, acrylic and polymer that prefigured her colour-field works.
Works
Janet Kigusiuq at Textile Museum of Canada
Location: Textile Museum of Canada
Janet Kigusiuq’s practice explores the relationship between representation and abstraction. Like her mother, Jessie Oonark, Janet was born in the Back River area some 200 kilometres north of Qamani’tuaq. She lived through the starvation period of the 1950s before their relocation to Qamani’tuaq and was married at the age of…