Son of the great Jessie Oonark and husband of the gifted textile and graphic artist Ruth Qaulluaryuk, Josiah Nuilaalik created a remarkable body of work that lies rather outside the mainstream Baker Lake sculptural aesthetic. His dream-like images of animal-shamans and transforming animal spirits feel inspired by drawings, prints and wall hangings, taking on three-dimensional, shape-shifting form in stone and antler. They are fantastical but strangely believable.

For Nuilaalik form, material, and content are equally malleable. The imaginary blends seamlessly with the real; stone and antler are pliable and fluid. As Robert Kardosh writes in the Two Great Image Makers from Baker Lake catalogue: “Many of Nuilaalik’s sculptures feel as though they have been literally stretched or pulled into shape rather than just simply carved out of the stone...” (p. 6).

Shaman is one of Nuilaalik’s great masterpieces. The artist’s unique brand of dreamy abstraction is brilliantly captured in this work. The body suggests human and animal forms and gestures yet seems to defy actual materiality as it shape-shifts before our eyes. The shaman’s pose and facial expression are ecstatic; tilted back slightly with raised arms/wings, he opens himself up to receive his helping spirit. Bravo.