Woman with Raised Arms is an important transitional work from Pangnark’s “middle” period, dating from the very early 1970s; in other words, carved after the artist’s early experimentation with small, relatively naturalistic but hard-edged works in the late 1960s, and before the period when he delved into more extreme abstraction c. 1973-74. Quite a sizable work, this sculpture is carved in a dense, obdurate stone. The highly distinctive tool marks suggest that Pangnark worked very hard to coax a very expressive and even emotionally charged female figure from the stubborn material. The kneeling woman looks up and raises her arms in a gesture that might be beseeching or anguished, or is possibly one of thanksgiving. Pangnark in fact carved several figures with raised arms over the course of his career (see references online). This imposing sculpture, slightly raw in both its physicality and emotional intensity, is one of the most impressive and moving examples we have seen.

References: When we start to look for them, we realize that Pangnark actually carved a number of human figures with raised arms. For other examples see First Arts, 5 December 2022, Lot 41; Bernadette Driscoll, Eskimo Point/Arviat (Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1982), cats. 64, 67, 69, 70; and Norman Zepp, Pure Vision: The Keewatin Spirit (Regina: Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, 1986), cats. 23, 27, 30.