Napachie moved into Cape Dorset in the late 1950s and began drawing almost immediately, at the same time as her mother Pitseolak (see Lots 17, 18). Napachie’s Eskimo Sea Dreams beautifully conveys Inuit myth overlapping with traditional Inuit life in an imagined world. Here are two scenes, each depicted against a mottled blue sea. Humans go about their day, apparently unaware or unbothered by the supernatural figures going about their own business. For young Napachie, however, this was the stuff of legend, not experience:

The image is a whaling scene and telling a tale. Whales and bears and other animals turn into humans in Inuit mythology. It is depicting an Inuit myth even though I have not witnessed anything happening like that in real life.

—Napachie in Leroux et al ed., Inuit Women Artists, 1994, p. 137

References: For an overview of the artist’s life and work, see Odette Leroux, Marion E. Jackson and Minnie Aodla Freeman, ed., Inuit Women Artists: Voices from Cape Dorset, (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre / Gatineau: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1994), p. 133-157. See also Leslie Boyd Ryan and Darlene Coward Wight, Napachie Pootoogook, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2004), and Leslie Boyd Ryan, "Mannaruluujujuq" (Not So Long Ago): The Memories of Napachie Pootoogook," Inuit Art Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 3, Fall 2005, p. 9-16. See also Jean Blodgett, et.al. Three Women, Three Generations: Drawings by Pitseolak Ashoona, Napatchie Pootoogook and Shuvinai Ashoona, (Kleinberg, ON: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1999).