Part of the inland Ihalmiut (Caribou Inuit) group living at Ennadai Lake, Mary Ayaq (sometimes still referred to as Akjar) is the daughter of its camp leader Andy Aulatjut and the renowned sculptor Elizabeth Nutaraaluk. Ayaq began carving in the mid 1960s, working steadily as an artist alongside her husband Luke Anowtalik and sharing a quite similar style at times. Ayaq’s multiple-face sculptures have also been compared to those of Lucy Tasseor, but Ayaq’s compositions are often livelier, often incorporating human and sometimes even animal figures.

Ayaq’s sculptural style was fully developed by 1969, the date she created her perhaps most famous sculpture, Composite of Figures and Dog in the Swinton Collection at the WAG. Mother and Child is only slightly larger but it feels much more monumental, probably because it comprises two massive figures rather than a half-dozen smaller ones. Interestingly the two large heads are equal in size, so that the figures read almost like a couple. The real surprise, however, lies at the back, where the giant amautiq hood frames a diminutive head in profile, making the sculpture even more enigmatic. Knowing what we do about Ayaq’s strong sense of family, our hunch is that the small face represents the child’s namesake. Thus Ayaq’s astonishingly bold sculptural statement is tinged with devotion and remembrance. Marvelous.

References: For major works by the artist see George Swinton, Sculpture of the Inuit, (Toronto: M&S, 1972/92), fig. 141, 145, 601; Ingo Hessel, Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre/Phoenix: Heard Museum, 2006), pp. 158-159; Marion Scott Gallery, Vision and Form: The Norman Zepp – Judith Varga Collection of Inuit Art, (Vancouver, 2003), pp. 106-107; Inuit Gallery of Vancouver, Arviat: Artists of the Past Present and Future, (1997), cats. 7, 37. Walker’s Auctions, Ottawa, May 2015, Lot 178. See also Bernadette Driscoll, Eskimo Point/Arviat, (Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1982), pp. 46, 47 and the 1969 photo of Ayaq with one of her sculptures on p. 17.