Transformation is at the heart of Judas Ullulaq's sculpture, and in this extraordinary female shaman, we encounter a creature suspended somewhere between woman and muskox. Seated upright, she retains something of the human figure, yet her enormous head, rounded body and projecting muskox horns suggest a very different creature emerging from the stone. Ullulaq seems to take particular pleasure in this uncertainty, allowing human, animal, and spirit to inhabit the same curious form.

The surface is a marvel of intricate carving. Deeply incised lines sweep across the dark stone, following the contours of the head and body in a succession of closely spaced grooves. These might suggest the folds of clothing, strands of hair or the shaggy coat of a muskox, and perhaps all three at once. The face is especially fascinating. Delicately incised tunniit, the traditional facial tattoos of Inuit women, establish the figure's female identity, while her head is tilted dramatically, her mouth wide open and her inlaid eyes fixed in an extraordinary stare. There is something wonderfully strange about this expression, as though we have encountered the shaman at the very moment of her transformation.

The muskox was a favourite subject of Ullulaq's, appearing in hunting scenes, independent sculptures and, most intriguingly, in his many depictions of shamans and supernatural beings. Darlene Coward Wight illustrates several such works in Art & Expression of the Netsilik, including Muskox Shaman of 1988, a particularly close companion to the present sculpture [1]. Here, too, we find a female shaman with facial tattoos, the combination of stone and horn, and the curious mingling of human and muskox features. Ullulaq returned to this subject repeatedly, finding in the animal's shaggy form and formidable horns a wonderful source of sculptural invention.

Ullulaq's fascination with transformation belongs to a broader tradition of supernatural imagery among artists of the Kitikmeot region, yet his sculptures are unmistakably his own. The staring eyes, gaping mouths, exaggerated features, and surprising combinations of materials give his figures a startling individuality. His continued use of inlay is especially characteristic. While the practice had largely disappeared from Inuit sculpture elsewhere by the mid 1970s, Ullulaq and several of his contemporaries continued to incorporate antler, ivory, and other materials into their carvings throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

What is, perhaps, most appealing about this sculpture is that Ullulaq never quite settles the question of what we are looking at. The woman remains a woman even as the muskox emerges, its horns and shaggy surface becoming inseparable from her human features. The strongly tilted head, deeply scored stone, and contrasting textures of horn and inlay give the figure an extraordinary sense of animation. There is both humour and something unsettling in this strange creature, whose expressive face and wonderfully inventive form demonstrate Ullulaq's extraordinary imagination and mastery of his material.

1. See the section on Judas Ullulaq in Darlene Coward Wight, Art & Expression of the Netsilik, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2000), pp. 152–171, in particular, cats. 148, 154, 157.

MBL