Jessie Oonark

Jessie Oonark was born into the nomadic camp life of the Utkuhikhalingmiut Inuit in the Back River district of Nunavut. Survived starvation in the central Arctic in the late 1950s, Oonark was airlifted to the settlement of Baker Lake (Qamani'tuaq), where in her mid-fifties she began drawing with felt-tip markers and colored pencils provided by craft officers.

Oonark produced an astonishing body of over 500 graphic prints and monumental sewn wall hangings using colored wool felt and embroidery floss. Her iconic works, such as Woman and Giver of Life, combined traditional Arctic clothing (amauti) with shamanic transformation imagery, earning her election to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the Order of Canada.