My grandmother used to tell me stories […] My grandmother told me that animals used to turn into people. My grandmother told me stories to put me to sleep at night. I wondered how I could do something to put the stories my grandmother used to tell me into art.

(From an artist interview with Ingo Hessel, 2004, in Hessel, Arctic Spirit, 2006, p. 123)

When Avaalaaqiaq was given the chance to make her very first work on cloth in 1969 or 1970, she was immediately inspired by her grandmother’s stories. Animal-human transformation would become the hallmark of her imagery, apparent already in an early work c. 1972 (see Sheila Butler’s article in Alma Houston, ed., Inuit Art: An Anthology, p. 96), and her landmark Mysterious Powers of the Shaman from 1974 (see Hessel, Inuit Art, fig. 33). This wonderful and impressive untitled work dates about a year or two after that example. Here Avaalaaqiaq presents bold, colourful transforming animal-human figures displayed within a loosely symmetrical yet energetic composition. The zigzag-striped embroidery patterns are typical of her early style and add to the feeling of energy and excitement. Avaalaaqiaq’s hybrid creatures are humorous rather than unsettling; lively and joyful, they cavort almost like costumed circus performers.

References: For works by Avaalaaqiaq from the same period (with embroidery stripes) see Ingo Hessel, Inuit Art: An Introduction, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre / New York: Harry Abrams / London: British Museum Press, 1998), fig. 33; Sheila Butler, “Wall Hangings from Baker Lake” in Alma Houston ed., Inuit Art: An Anthology, (Winnipeg: Watson and Dwyer Publishing, 1988), p. 96. Also see similar contemporaneous works by the artists in Jean Blodgett, Grasp Tight the Old Ways: Selections from the Klamer Family Collection of Inuit Art, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1983), cats. 10, 11, pp. 44-45. See the section on the artist in Marion Scott Gallery, Two Great Image Makers from Baker Lake, (Vancouver: Marion Scott Gallery, 1999). See also an engaging book about Avaalaaqiaq and her art: Judith Nasby, Irene Avaalaaqiaq: Myth and Reality, (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002). For an important work see Ingo Hessel, Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre / Phoenix: Heard Museum, 2006), cat. 111.