Ruth Qaulluaryuk worked with cloth through the 1970s but it was in the late 1980s that she emerged as a prolific textile artist. This work recalls her celebrated Four Seasons on the Tundra (1991-92) in the Winnipeg Art Gallery, where embroidered patches of plants, flowers, and lichen unfold across the textile’s surface.

So often, the Arctic is characterized as barren or inhospitable, yet both that famous set of four and the present work reveal another vision entirely, presenting the land as alive with colour and form. Within the dense surface of her work, one can trace blossoms and foliage that suggest the botanical varieties of the North. Purple recalls saxifrage, Nunavut’s emblematic flower, while white and lilac clusters may suggest delicate lady’s smock. Constellations of rich reds and burgundies evoke the fullness of woolly lousewort. Yellow sprays brighten the field like wild camomile, golden blossoms suggest the mountain avens, and dense greens settle into forms reminiscent of Labrador tea.

Amid dense fields of flora, the silhouette of a caribou, seal, and two figures emerges, their form appliquéd in felt and concealed within the abundance of colour and stitchwork. Additional forms punctuate the surface, which unfolds like an Arctic meadow in midsummer, when every hue arrives at once, fleeting yet exuberant.

ND

References: Four Seasons on the Tundra is illustrated in Bernadette Driscoll’s article “A Woman’s Vision, A Woman’s Voice: Inuit Textile Art from Arctic Canada”, Inuit Art Quarterly, (Vol 9, No. 2, Summer 1994), p. 9. For an early example from c. 1972-3 by Ruth Qaulluaryuk, see Darlene Coward Wight, The Faye and Bert Settler Collection, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2004), p. 81.