Susie Silook, a world-renowned Siberian Yupik and Inupiaq ivory sculptor, is known for her fine craftsmanship and emotive carvings. She primarily works with walrus ivory, often incorporating wood, fur, and antler to create haunting female figures that explore trauma, recovery, and violence against Indigenous women. Her transformative, spiritual works reflect a deep connection to culture and land. Silook’s art has been featured in major exhibitions and she has received numerous accolades, including a Governor’s Award (2000) and a United States Artist Rasmuson Fellowship (2007).

This elegant sculpture depicts a swimming sea mammal figure with inlaid baleen eyes and a human face representing the shaman from the work’s title. On the back of the tusk are incised designs rubbed with red ochre, inlaid discs of baleen, and the x-ray style pictogram of a seal. The natural curve of the walrus tusk lends itself to the fluidity of movement of a swimming pinniped, while the flippers affixed to stems may draw inspiration from the appendages attached to the hoops of yua spirit masks. The sculpture is mounted on a rod and wooden base.

1. Decolonizing Alaska exhibition catalogue. 2017. Bunnell Street Arts Center, Homer, Alaska, np.

Christopher W. Smith