George Arluk began carving at the tender age of nine during his childhood years in Rankin Inlet. He copied the works of older artists, particularly Tiktak; after his move to Arviat he absorbed the influences of Pangnark and Tasseor, but had developed a personal style by the early 1970s. Arluk’s mature works are characterized by their dynamic sense of movement in which abstracted forms weave in and out in dance-like rhythms. While all of his works contain at least one face, some sculptures look more like human figures than others do. Composition is a good case in point: its playful, sinuous shapes likely conjure up ideas about musical rhythm or dreams or spirits rather than the human figure.

References: A quite similar work is illustrated on the cover of the solo exhibition catalogue George Arluk: The Song in the Stone (San Francisco: Images of the North, 1979) cat. 17; the catalogue illustrates 27 works from the late 1970s. See also Gerald McMaster, editor, Inuit Modern: The Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), pp. 110 and 128-129.