How Calgary Kablusiak Popped Inuit Art

The Inuvialuk artist's creation—featuring Furbies, soapstone tampons, and a satirical selfie backdrop—has garnered a lot of attention, a little outrage, and even won a Sobey Art Award.

(Photo by Allison Seto)

Artists from both sides run wild in Kablusiak's family. Their childhood home in Yellowknife, and later in Edmonton, was filled with relatives' works, including a painting of wild geese – a wedding tribute to their parents by Kablusiak's brother, the famous Inuvialuk artist Bill Nasogaluak. “I didn't understand it at the time,” says Kablusiak, who dabbled in crafts with her tiny hands. “Now I know Inuit art collectors are foaming at the mouth.”

With those genes, it turns out that Kablusiak — who jokes that Starbucks only uses their English name Jade — will eventually move to Calgary to pursue an arts diploma and degree. But as an artist, Kablusiak says, being confined to a single page quickly felt like “holding a sneeze.” So they pushed the envelope, first in new mediums and then in taboo subjects. Kablusiak's breakthrough moment was an exhibit at Calgary's Sled Island Music and Arts Festival in 2017, featuring soapstone carvings of tampons, cigarettes, and a Diva Cup for good measure.

By 2018, Kablusiak was represented at Calgary's Norberg Hall Gallery and in 2021 co-curated the inaugural collection at Kaumajuk, the Winnipeg Art Gallery's new Inuit Art Centre. They've made waves for their mold-breaking compositions, zeroing in on Inuit art history and Western pop culture's agonizing shift to “being from the North, but having it in the South.”

There were smaller works, such as the owl sculpture first popularized by Inuit artist Jeannie Snowball in the 60s, a scroll on Ookpik. (Kabulusiak's Ookpiks were Garfields and Furbies.) They also branched out into more spacious, darker units. In 2021 “Suvittuk!” or “Can't help/Too bad!” A photo of Tuktoyaktuk Cemetery hangs on the wall, a backdrop for visitors' selfies. He broke the news about the unmarked graves, revealing what Kablusiak calls a “painful scene.” “If I embellish these things with humor, it's like taking a pill with honey,” they say. And the controversy that followed? “I give this up.”

“TY Mr. Sobey,” one of Kablusiak's installations in the Sobey Art Award exhibition at the Art Gallery of Alberta. (Photo by Leroy Schultz)

Last November, just after his 30th birthday, Kablusiak won the prestigious Sobey Art Award – the first Inuvialuk artist. They plan to award the $100,000 prize to a house in northern Alberta with enough space for a studio. Anyone concerned about Kablusiak's sell-out should pay attention to “TY Again, Mr. Sobey,” a soapstone sculpture of a kneeling, pleading figure surrounded by dollar signs on display at the National Gallery in Ottawa. This prompted a huge reaction from foodie heir Rob Sobey. “He was affected, but he laughed,” Kablusiak says. “I wasn't expecting that.”

POP QUIZ

Secret Passion: Stickers. “When I was 16, I joined the Sandylion Sticker Club. Now I allow myself a few pages.''
To work: Parka cover made of canvas and cowhide
Wall Art: “I have several framed works by Inuk artists like Darcy Bernhardt and Shuvinai Ashoona – some gifted, some bought”
Winter activity: Staying inside most of the time
McDonald's order: “Since I found out I'm gluten intolerant, I've had less, but there's no gluten in the fries!”
Ink is good: Kablusiak tattoo a tabletraditional Inuit face tattoos, as well as a few handmade DIY creations