John Kurok’s mask brings the heart of his ceramic practice into sharp focus. A younger Rankin Inlet artist associated with the Matchbox Gallery, Kurok is less interested in narrative than in the play of forms across a surface and the movement those forms set in motion. The human face is one of Kurkok's most fertile points of departure and here he presents it as something deeply composed and inward. Here, the diminutive maskette is frontal and poised, its closed eyes and softly shaped features held in a state of deep stillness and serenity. Across that calm surface, fine tattoo marks at the brow and cheeks introduce both pattern and presence. The mottled patina moves delicately across the surface in soft tonal shifts, settling into the modelling so that the faces feels both warm and animated.