Pudlo Pudlat: Art Is Life
Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre, Medicine Hat, AB - To March 7
In Pudlo Pudlat: Art Is Life, brightly coloured airplanes soar above spear-wielding hunters moving across frozen tundra. With the planes’ noses pointed skyward, their curvaceous forms bulge at the cockpit and taper at the tail, suggesting the bending, leaping motion of fish. Such imaginative juxtapositions are featured in a touring retrospective that celebrates the remarkable contribution of Pudlo Pudlat (1916–1992) to the development of Inuit art while foregrounding his distinctive storytelling and illustrative practice.
Across the exhibition, traditional practices of hunting and fishing coexist with helicopters, power lines and satellite dishes, forming visual narratives that reflect adaptation as much as disruption. His white surfaces evoke arctic ice, snow and sky, holding both real and imagined space while revealing Pudlat’s attentiveness to the world around him.
Before emerging as an artist, Pudlat was a semi-nomadic hunter and fisherman along the southwest coast of Baffin Island. In the 1950s, he moved to Kiaktuuq, where he met James Houston, who introduced the community to printmaking. In 1960, an injury led him to shift from carving to drawing, printmaking and painting. His experiences on the land and sea shaped the way he observed the world, giving him a perspective that blends traditional life with modern technology and imagination.
Pudlat’s genius lies in how he balances observation with invention. Tilted horizons and flattened planes transform the Arctic into a space where multiple stories unfold. Subtle distortions and playful curves give familiar objects—planes, boats, helicopters— a surprising, graphic quality. Open white space and carefully chosen colours guide the eye across each composition, letting viewers move intuitively between the real and fantastical. Humour, rhythm and inventive perspective combine to make each drawing meticulously observed yet wonderfully alive.
Pudlat’s work personifies the spirit of the North, reflecting a personal vision while belonging to a diverse and ever-evolving continuum of Inuit artistic practice. Through inventive narratives, playful distortions and layered compositions, he captures the coexistence of traditional and non-traditional technologies, leaving viewers with a vivid sense of the Arctic and the enduring creativity of Inuit art.
