Karoo Ashevak

Karoo Ashevak was born to a nomadic Netsilik Inuit camp in the central Canadian Arctic and lived a traditional subsistence hunting life until moving to the settlement of Spence Bay (Taloyoak, Nunavut) in 1968. Beginning to carve aged whalebone in his late twenties, he possessed a ferocious, innate artistic imagination unlike any other sculptor of his generation.

Ashevak transformed petrified, porous whalebone—inlaid with caribou antler, walrus ivory, and stone—into whimsical, grotesque, and spiritually charged sculptures of flying shamans, drum dancers, and spirits with gaping mouths and mismatched eyes. A 1973 solo exhibition at the American Indian Arts Center in New York launched him to global stardom before his tragic death in a house fire at thirty-four.