This untitled work exemplifies Nick Sikkuark’s remarkable freedom as a draughtsman. Though fully versed in Western pictorial traditions, the drawings that emerged from his hand exist entirely within his own imaginative realm.

While Sikkuark is perhaps best known for his transformation images, in which shamans and other figures shift from one form to another, this drawing reveals that his vision could just as powerfully unfold without the figure.

The composition pulses with the romance of complementary colours. A sunset glows like a low ember pressed to the horizon, its warmth filtering through clouds into a dusk-drenched sky. Vertical forms descend before this radiant backdrop, dripping from a dense veil of snow. Pale and luminous, touched with blue and green, the suspended ceiling brims with cold light, while its distant edges catch the last golden flare before fading into icy stillness. From this atmosphere, icicles emerge like stalactites, their downward motion a delicate counterpoint to the broad horizontal band of sunset. Their tips taper into droplets that ripple into a blackened pool, untouched by light.

ND

References: For a comprehensive exploration of the artist’s life and work, complete with numerous illustrations, see The National Gallery solo exhibition catalogue: Christine Lalonde et al., Nick Sikkuark: Humour and Horror, (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2023). See also Marion Scott Gallery, The Art of Nick Sikkuark: Sculpture and Drawings, (Vancouver: Marion Scott Gallery, 2003). See the section on the artist in Darlene Coward Wight, Art & Expression of the Netsilik, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2000), pp. 32-43. For a discussion of Sikkuark's sculptural style see Robert Kardosh's two-part article, "Natural Fantasia: The Wonderful World of Nick Sikkuark”: Part I in Inuit Art Quarterly, (Spring 2005), pp. 8-14, and Part II in Inuit Art Quarterly, (Summer 2005), pp. 10-16.