The next Artist You Need To Know is Bill Nasogaluak ᐱᐃᓪ ᓇᓱᒐᓗᐊᒃ.
He is an Inuvialuk painter and sculptor from Tuktoyaktuk, in the Northwest Territories : Nasogaluak’s artworks explore Inuvialuit culture and also offer a commentary on larger social issues that intersect with the life of the Inuit people in both an historical and contemporary context.
“I caught Inuit values in a state of transition and I can tap all resources – whether from modern society or from tradition”.
From the Art Gallery of Ontario : ‘His artwork represents interpretations of what he knows best: his Inuvialuit culture, the mythology and traditions of his people, and the relationship between land and wildlife. Nasogaluak’s media of expression are sculpture and painting—from monumental stone pieces to miniature ivory carvings or outdoor murals. Nasogaluak has also enjoyed working in the ephemeral art forms of ice and snow.’
Nasogaluak was born in 1953. He is a self taught artist who from a very young age was very interested in drawing and painting. He worked for years as an certified electronic technician, creating his artworks on the side and in his spare time. In 1992, after garnering acclaim and recognition for his works, Nasogaluak began to focus primarily on his artworks. Nasogaluak also taught art at Arctic College in the mid-1990s.
From here : “Unflinching of eye, and unwavering in the clarity of his artistic statements, artist Bill Nasogaluak has developed a highly distinctive canon of images encompassing subjects as diverse as shamanism and Inuit mythology, Western Renaissance traditions, climate change, depression, and the impacts of industry in the North.”
Nasogaluak was the primary artist leading the team that designed and produced the new Ceremonial Mace for the Northwest Territories legislature in 1999. He was also one of the artists who created the commemorative sculpture to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik.
In Arles, France, in 2017, Nasogaluak was an artist in residence and he has installations of his Inuksuit works around the world, including Japan, Guatemala, Mexico, India and Peru.
Several of Nasogaluak’s sculptures are on permanent display, such as a work at The Prince of Wales Museum in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. He has also had exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, and was part of the important exhibition at The National Gallery of Canada Inuit Sculpture Now exhibition. His sculptures have been shown in exhibitions in Sweden, France and Canada.
Nasogaluak’s artworks can be found in a number of private and public collections around the world.
He is also the cousin of previously featured Artist You Need To Know Abraham Anghik Ruben.
“To me, being an artist is interpreting how you feel and expressing yourself creatively.”
One of Nasogaluak’s artworks that has received significant attention is his sculpture about how the Inuit in Canada were dehumanized by the federal government’s Inuit disc number system. Nasogaluak talks about that work – and the painful history that informed its creation – here, in a video that accompanied an exhibition of his work at (and the opening of) Qaumajuq in Winnipeg.
That work is the first in the gallery below. His words : “This piece, W.3-1258, that’s my Eskimo identification number,” he says. “That’s who I was known as, W.3-1258, not as Bill Nasogaluak. The title is very significant to this piece. And why? It’s flat, no features. I was trying to bring across to the viewer that we were faceless. We were just a number.”
More about his life and work can be seen here at the Inuit Art Quarterly.