Throughout his career, Josiah Nuilaalik often returned to figures in which human and animal forms meet, merge, and shift. In Caribou Shaman, the transformation is spare but potent. Fine antler tines spring directly from the head of a weighty figure, their slender points set against heavy shoulders, thick limbs, and the dense mass of the stone. The face is scored with simple incisions, while the open hands and square frontal stance give the figure a forceful, self-possessed presence. Nuilaalik does not labour the metamorphosis. A human body remains solidly human, yet the antlers alter everything, binding person and caribou in a single compact form.

MBL