Featuring one of Sikkuark’s iconic motifs, the humanoid worm, the hyper-realism achieved through the artist’s expert use of coloured pencils gives this fantastical work a dramatic tension. Like Sikkuark’s best works, the present drawing inspires in its viewers a mix of horror and humour. The worm's segmented body is rendered with such precise detail that it appears almost tangible, as if we could reach in and feel its slimy texture. The caricature-like face, with its disproportionately large ears, teeters on the edge of the absurd. The overt sharpness of the teeth and the extreme facial expression — caught between a scream, a snarl, and a grimace — suggests a creature that is trying too hard to appear fearsome, making it humorous in its failure to fully convince. Even the surrounding swirl of smaller horned ice worms adds to the whimsical horror, their deft forms floating around the central figure like slithering, grotesque confetti.

References: See Sikkuark’s black paper drawing I Turn Myself Into a Worm in First Arts, 5 December 2022, Lot 60. For a discussion of Sikkuark’s use of black paper see, Marion Scott Gallery, The Art of Nick Sikkuark: Sculpture and Drawings, (Vancouver: Marion Scott Gallery, 2003), pp. 17-23. See the section on the artist in Darlene Coward Wight, Art & Expression of the Netsilik, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2000), pp. 32-43. For a discussion of Sikkuark's sculptural style see Robert Kardosh's two-part article, "Natural Fantasia: The Wonderful World of Nick Sikkuark”: Part I in Inuit Art Quarterly, (Vol. 20, No. 1, Spring 2005), pp. 8-14, and Part II in Inuit Art Quarterly, (Vol. 20, No. 2, Summer 2005), pp. 10-16.