Kahootsuak was the wife of Andy Miki and the sister of Andy Aulatjut, the leader of the Ahiarmiut (Caribou Inuit) camp at Ennadai Lake, a camp far inland that included Aulatjut’s wife Elizabeth Nutaraaluk, Luke and Mary Ajaq Anowtalik, and other future Arviat artists. These Ahiarmiut were forcibly relocated to other lakes, then on to communities along the Hudson Bay coast. Kahootsuak and Miki were moved to Arviat, then Rankin Inlet, then Whale Cove before finally settling in Arviat in the late 1960s.

Kahootsuak often depicted mothers and children, sometimes simple Janus-face compositions or, as is the case here, single figures. Her sculptures are generally quite simple and compact in form yet strongly suggestive of emotion and affection. Kneeling Woman is a classic example of her style, exhibiting the artist’s trademark facial features with their angular T-shaped nose-brow formations (not unlike some faces carved by the Rankin Inlet sculptor John Tiktak), and angular U-shaped folded arms. This impressive composition is especially compact, possibly out of necessity, for it is carved in a particularly hard stone. We love the powerful and quite abstract shapes that loosely define the figures’ heads and bodies; the work must be held in the hand to be fully appreciated. We love how the sculptural form of the woman’s arms melds with that of her hood; in fact, the entire figure comprises a series of powerful interlocking shapes.