Although Nicholas Ikkuti’s work is held in several major public collections, including the National Museum of the American Indian (cat. no. 26/234) and the National Gallery of Canada (accession nos. 36361 and 36360), very little has been written about the artist.

Our research uncovered only a handful of textual references to his art and practice. Among the most thoughtful is an observation by Norman Zepp in The Williamson Collection of Inuit Sculpture — a publication that features an Ikkuti carving on its cover — where Zepp writes, “Nicholas Ikkuti’s [work] intrigues and challenges the viewer [...] The intricacy and, yet, formality of these works result in unforgettable images as stimulating to the mind as they are pleasing to the eye” (1987, p. 15).

Likewise, Robert Kardosh, discussing a work by the artist in Zepp’s collection, writes in Vision and Form (2003) that Ikkuti “occupies a position somewhere between the two opposing tendencies of realism and abstraction” (p. 68).

We can think of no more fitting quotations for the present work by the artist. In Inverted Face within Concentric Curved Bands, the composition offers a striking negotiation between realism and abstraction. At its centre, an upside-down face is hollowed out to evoke a human presence with the eyes, nose, and mouth rendered as voids. Radiating outward are a series of curved bands, their rhythm and symmetry organized in a way that reiterates the interplay of negative and positive space, with void being as essential as sculpted material to articulate form.

As Zepp observed, this work, too, “intrigues and challenges” the viewer, resisting any easy interpretation of its meaning. Is this the return of a radiant, anthropomorphized summer sun, its warm rays made into careful arcs? Or is this an angakkuq (shaman) mid-incantation, the bands emanating from his mouth like sound made solid, a sculptural depiction of breath and syllable? Perhaps they are lines of motion, charting the sweep of the trance as it takes hold of the shaman. Or maybe we are witnessing the northern lights, given form as they ripple and shimmer across the sky around a figure.

This sense of ambiguity is not incidental but central to the work’s impact. As Zepp noted, the result is unforgettable and “as stimulating to the mind” as it is “pleasing to the eye.” Inverted Face within Concentric Curved Bands offers no resolution on what it is illustrating, nor does it seek one; it simply invites us to stay with it and reflect.

ND