Now familiar and much loved in Myra Kukiiyaut’s work, the depiction of abstract or elusive ideas was present from the very beginning of her artistic career. Dark Caribou is a deceptively simple example. At first glance, a caribou appears beset by a flurry of birds, their sharp beaks worrying at its ears and tail as they crowd close around the animal.

A second look unsettles that reading. Among the mottled bodies and busy beaks emerges a two headed bird in pursuit of the caribou. The doubling is wonderfully odd, made stranger still by the fact that one head seems far less committed to the chase than the other. Kukiiyaut turns a seemingly straightforward animal scene into something sly, strange, and slightly surreal, with humour slipping in through the smallest visual surprise.