If you were to look for an artist who carved entirely on his own terms, you’d likely find yourself in the company of Thomassie Kudluk. His works are unbothered by convention, sculptures that feel more like declarations than objects, each one carrying the weight of its own strange logic.

His carvings show no interest in elegance and are all the more compelling for it. His narratives, sometimes inscribed in syllabics, though not the case here, are often sharp, strange, or laugh-out-loud funny. They veer between wit and weirdness with total confidence, unafraid to be biting, baffling, or both at once.

In this work, two birds peck and pester two men, pressing their beaks with persistent, pointed provocation in a scene that bristles with peculiar tension.