Description
Jessie Oonark
Baker Lake, Nunavut
1906–1985
Created at the very outset of her career, People of the Inland (1961) is among the earliest graphic translations of Jessie Oonark’s visual language into print. Based on drawings made shortly after her arrival in Baker Lake, the image reflects memories of inland Inuit life—its figures rendered with a clarity and directness that would come to define her work.
Produced in Cape Dorset as part of the 1961 annual print collection, this work occupies a unique position in Inuit print history. It predates the establishment of the Baker Lake print program by nearly a decade and represents a rare moment in which an inland artist’s imagery was translated through the Cape Dorset studio system.
The composition is structured through bold contour and flattened form, emphasizing clothing, presence, and collective identity over narrative detail. Even at this early stage, Oonark’s instinct for balance and pattern is evident—qualities that would later expand into her celebrated textile and large-scale graphic works.
People of the Inland stands as both an origin point and an outlier: a foundational image that bridges lived experience and the emerging printmaking tradition in the Canadian Arctic.
