This drawing by Shuvinai Ashoona contains an almost encyclopaedic summary of the artist’s personal iconography. The floating worlds are part of a series created by Shuvinai featuring multiple images of the Earth, or Earth-like worlds, inserted into her drawings. Some of these Earth images even include houses or human activity superimposed on their surfaces. Stars and references to the northern lights emphasize this universe of worlds celebrated by the artist over a period of years. The varied surfaces of skin tents or the remnants of traditional dwellings appear frequently in Shuvinai’s drawings (see Lot 13) and are found here as well. Finally, Shuvinai’s works often incorporate images of herself or other artists holding up their drawings to the viewer – and the artist has incorporated one of these here for good measure! In Celestial Earths Shuvinai successfully arranges these disparate elements into a fully balanced composition that is pulled together by a harmonious palette that includes the multi-coloured raindrops covering the drawing’s surface.

References: For numerous drawings with similar imagery see Gaëtane Verna ed., Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds (Toronto: The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery / Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2019). See also Nancy G. Campbell, Shuvinai Ashoona: Life & Work (Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2019).