When talking about Northern textile work, a phrase that even we are guilty of using is that a work is ‘lush with details,’ usually referring to an abundance of stitchwork, appliqué, and content within a single work. Despite the sentiment’s overuse, we will be the first to argue that Janet Nungnik’s work is deserving of the phrase in its truest sense. Often based on memories and stories from her life, and eschewing traditional ideas of perspective and narrative, Nungnik’s wallhangings are densely populated with landscapes, figures, objects, and emotions. In Rainbow of Memories, a figure has shed their clothes to enjoy a (presumably) cold dip in the water, with water and stitches covering most of their body. While butterflies float around their clothes, another figure flies above them as well as the titular rainbow that spans the work, all of which has been accented with beads, colour, and metallic thread. The entire work is layers of handwork upon layers of a story, something that can easily be dove into.

AC