![\"Pitseolak's](\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/amst282\/files\/2013\/11\/Pitseolaks-Glasses.jpg\")
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Annie Pootoogook, (Inuit, Cape Dorset, Canada, b. 1969)<\/b><\/p>\n
Pitseolak\u2019s Glasses<\/i>, 2006<\/b><\/p>\n
Collagraph (edition of 25)<\/b><\/p>\n
13 x 20 inches<\/b><\/p>\n
Reproduced with the permissions of Dorset Fine Arts<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to go see my grandma drawing.\u00a0 They used to talk about what they are doing about life in the past. She used to tell the stories that came with the drawings and those were true stories.\u00a0 I wish I was born in the past.\u00a0 I would know in the traditional ways.\u00a0 I only know by my mom\u2019s drawing and my grandma\u2019s drawing.\u00a0 They knew the past.\u00a0 They are lucky.\u00a0 If I was in the past, I would draw it, too.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not from the past.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see any igloos in my life.\u00a0 Only today: Ski-doo, Honda, house, things inside the house.\u00a0 That\u2019s only I see, today.\u00a0 I see and I do.\u00a0 What I see, I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0Annie Pootoogook<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In her drawings and prints, Annie Pootoogook often depicts her late grandmother and influential artist, Pitseolak Ashoona, wearing her signature black-rimmed glasses.\u00a0 In this abstracted still life, the isolated glasses serve as an emotional and storied portrait of their owner. As a child, Pootoogook often visited her bedridden but still drawing grandmother, who was influential in the formation of her representational style and in her development as a third-generation artist.\u00a0 In contrast to earlier portraits, Pootoogook has removed the figure and replaced it with a symbolic object, implying Pitseolak\u2019s bodily absence while still representing a familial essence.<\/p>\n
This iconographic system that Pootoogook begins to establish is very much in line with the Inuit printmaking tradition of isolating Arctic animals; however, the subject matter of Pootoogook\u2019s art differs greatly from her predecessors.\u00a0 Instead of images of the \u201ctimeless\u201d Arctic, her works are riddled with contemporary objects in what some view as a conflation of Indigenous and Western cultures.\u00a0 This combination is sometimes underlined with humor and works to destabilize the static, ethnographic representation of Inuit peoples as the primitive Other. The realistic depiction of contemporary Inuit life in her works defies romanticized images of \u201ctraditional\u201d Inuit life often demanded by Western markets, while it highlights ways in which Inuit peoples have reclaimed colonial objects into new forms of tradition and everyday life. Pootoogook presents the glasses as an emblem of her grandmother and, in this way, she imbues them with personality, agency, and memories.<\/p>\n
When Annie was only thirteen years old, her grandmother Pitseolak Ashoona passed away.\u00a0 While Ashoona\u2019s work may have influenced Pootoogook\u2019s drawing style in her early career, the subject matter of her drawings has always been unique and, to non-Indigenous viewers, incongruous with their stereotyped images of Inuit peoples.\u00a0 Pootoogook\u2019s contemporary scenes are boldly realistic; she does not shy away from depicting scenes from her personal life that involve taboo social issues like alcoholism, sexuality, and domestic abuse.\u00a0 In this daring way, Pootoogook comments upon her surroundings and breaks down notions of authenticity with regards to Inuit art work.\u00a0 For Pootoogook, authenticity in her work is founded upon the principle of unapologetically depicting the complex realities of life in Cape Dorset.<\/p>\n
The seemingly simple composition of the print is complicated by Pootoogook\u2019s iconographic appropriation and playful representational style.\u00a0 In Pootoogook\u2019s rendering of the object, the glasses, which are partially closed and form a continuous contour, seem to float in the center of the picture plane.\u00a0 The subtle white highlights and inconsistent perspectival geometry of the glasses create an oscillation between flatness and depth, while the confident and meticulous lines create a sense of vitality as if the glasses have a life of their own.<\/p>\n
The composition, style, and printing technique of Pitseolak\u2019s Glasses<\/i> are incredibly similar to another print from the same year: 35\/36.\u00a0 <\/i>Curator Jan Allen writes that in Pootoogook\u2019s work \u201ccontainment and exposure are held in delicious tension\u201d; this dynamic tension is palpable in both of these prints.\u00a0 However, 35\/36 <\/i>features an outstretched bra rather than a pair of glasses.\u00a0\u00a0 Both the glasses and the bra float in the center of their compositions and seem to imply absence.\u00a0 They not only stand in for figural representation as characteristically endowed objects, but they call attention to what is missing: the figures themselves.\u00a0 In terms of geometry and utility, however, the two prints are diametrically opposed.\u00a0 Whereas the bra has positive spaces for concealing and containing, the glasses have negative spaces for revealing and exposing.<\/p>\n
Leighton Suen ’14 & Logan Woodruff ’14<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/a>\u2190 35\/36<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Two Seasons \u2192<\/a><\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Annie Pootoogook, (Inuit, Cape Dorset, Canada, b. 1969) Pitseolak\u2019s Glasses, 2006 Collagraph (edition of 25) 13 x 20 inches Reproduced with the permissions of Dorset Fine Arts \u201cI used to go see my grandma drawing.\u00a0 They used to talk about what they are doing about life in the past. She used to tell the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3713,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-73","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/amst282\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/amst282\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/amst282\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/amst282\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3713"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/amst282\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/amst282\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/amst282\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73\/revisions\/227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/amst282\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}