The People is a large and mesmerizing print that seems to draw the viewer wholly into its orbit. At its centre rests a motif Oonark revisited repeatedly: the human face, here in blue, brightened by a gentle smile. From this core, concentric circles of blue and red surge and swirl, their bands brimming with human faces, four birds below and one above. The spiral stirs suggestion, summoning the rhythm of a drum dance, the shape of a snow house, or some further vision beyond.

Rendered with striking precision, the centrifugal patterns of lines and figures create a dizzying display that seems to rotate before the viewer. The design carries a sense of unending expansion and contraction, as if it could surge and expand outward or contract inward indefinitely. It is profoundly fitting, then, that The People, emblematic of her lasting artistic achievement, was among Oonark’s final creations before her passing in 1985.

ND