Tuna Iquliq developed the distinctive, primal carving style for which he is perhaps best known while living in Rankin Inlet in the 1960s, although he was also known for his delicate, semi-abstract carvings of birds. It was in the spirit of this latter style that Tuna created this unusual, gorgeous sculpture. Delicately carved and polished in the most beautiful black Baker Lake stone, Composition is as enigmatic as it is lovely. A few possible interpretations come to mind. The work might depict a deceased person traveling to the next world, surrounded by his ancestors and the animals he loved. Possibly it illustrates a person dreaming of a spirit voyage; or a shaman actually taking such a voyage, surrounded by helping spirits. Whether elegiac or visionary, the work is lovely and quite moving.

Reference: For a simpler but related composition by the artist, also featuring heads and birds, see Marie Bouchard, An Inuit Perspective: Baker Lake Sculpture from the Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Gift of Samuel and Esther Sarick, (Baker Lake: Itsamittakarvik Inuit Heritage Centre / Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2000), p. 55. For several related compositions from 1979-80 see the solo exhibition catalogue Tuna Iquliq (Mannheim, Germany: Inuit Galerie, 1981), unpaginated.