Annie Pootoogook

Canadian, b. 1969

Tea Drinkers, 2001–2002

coloured pencil on paper

51 x 66 cm

Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery; Acquired with funds from the Mr. and Mrs. G.B. Wiswell Fund

2007-110

Categories:

Drawing, Inuit

Annie Pootoogook was born in 1969, but although her mother, Napachie Pootoogook, had been a respected artist since the 1960s, Annie didn’t begin making drawings until the 1990s. She attracted an international audience in 2006, when her work was included in a group exhibition at the Power Plant Gallery in Toronto. Later that year she was selected as the winner of the prestigious Sobey Art Award for best emerging Canadian artist. She also became the first Inuit artist to exhibit at Documenta in Kassel, Germany. Unlike many of her contemporaries in Cape Dorset, Pootoogook’s drawings are autobiographical snapshots of present-day life in Cape Dorset, expressing the cross-cultural reality of the contemporary Canadian Arctic. This includes tranquil domestic scenes, such as Tea Drinkers, as well as works expressing the darker elements of physical and substance abuse that exist under the surface of outward appearances.