Annie Pootoogook

Annie Pootoogook was born in 1969 in Cape Dorset, Nunavut. She began drawing in 1997, and although she did most of her work at home, she was a regular presence at the Kinngait studios during the early part of her career. Her grandmother, Pitseolak Ashoona, was one of the first to experiment with the new medium of drawing during the transition years when Inuit were leaving their traditional camps and moving to permanent settlements in the Canadian Arctic.

Annie’s drawings reflected her experience as a contemporary female artist living and working in the changing milieu of Canada’s far north.  From the apparently mundane (the line-up for the ATM machine at the Co-op store, watching television with her family) to the personal and intimate (her experience with spousal abuse, the loss of her mother), Annie expressed a wide range of content and emotions.

– Lee-Ann Martin