Kingmeata Etidlooie
Kingmeata was a graphic artist and sculptor who settled in Cape Dorset in the mid 1960s. A relatively prolific artist, Kingmeata had more than fifty of her prints published between 1970 and her death in 1979. Her work is characterized by a strong sense of order and structure. Using predominantly simplified animal and bird motifs, she concentrated on the formal rather than the narrative qualities of her subjects. However, her most important contribution to Inuit art has probably been her experimentation with media that are more painterly than linear. In the late 1960’s to the early 1970’s Kingmeata became one of the first Cape Dorset artists to work with watercolours, which had been given to her by Terry Ryan, Co-op manager and arts advisor, who recognized the painterly qualities of her drawings.
Kingmeata worked in a variety of mediums, including watercolour, acrylic paint and coloured pencil to create scenes that were rich in texture. Along with fellow artist, Pudlo Pudlat (1916 – 1992), she was one of the first users of the Co-op’s painting studio that was established in 1976. Characterized by a strong sense of order and structure, her work concentrated on formal compositions, rather than narrative ones, often introducing stylized shapes in to rich and saturated colour fields. Exemplary of such a style, Kingmeata’s piece, Untitled (1980-81), boasts a vibrant purple background with figures placed neatly amid the confines of a dark and defined landscape.
Etidlooie’s work has traveled across North America, and has been featured in a number of exhibitions in Asia and Europe. Her prints, drawings and paintings are housed in numerous national collections, including the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, QC, the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Manitoba, and the Canada Council Art Bank in Ottawa, ON, among others.
(Information provided by Dorset Fine Arts.)
