Janet Kigusiuq was the eldest of Jessie Oonark’s children (all of whom became artists). Kigusiuq spent her first forty years living on the land, first assisting her mother with innumerable chores and then living at Luke Anguhadluq’s camp with her husband Mark Uqayuittuq, where she ran her own household and raised her own family. She made her first drawings in 1968 and became one of Baker Lake’s most important graphic artists. Kigusiuq’s graphic and textile art career continued well beyond the heyday of print production in Baker Lake in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Janet Kigusiuq’s early graphics were energetic black-and-white depictions of people immersed in daily life and traditional activities. Her “discovery” of colour in the late 1980s gradually transformed her work into powerful explorations of pure colour; some of her late landscapes are, indeed, abstract colour fields. A lovely example of human figures “enveloped” in colour is Untitled (Four Figures Sleeping) from our December 2024 live sale (Lot 23). In the present drawing dating from the same period, Untitled (Three Figures), the human figures dominate; the “landscape” setting of irregular patches of colour is very much background – but no less powerful. As was typical of her late style, Kigusiuq brilliantly uses the white paper to delineate the large, striking figures of a woman and two men. The three faces are drawn with remarkable clarity, which only serves to heighten the sense of psychological and emotional ambiguity. We wonder if the scene depicts a love triangle or some similar situation. Remarkable.