married to Hugh Tulurialik, sister of Nancy Kangeryuaq Sevoga and Winnie Owingayak---------------As a child I used to listen to people telling stories, but I would try not to hear because the stories scared me. When I grew older, they made more sense and now give me ideas about what to draw.----------Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik (b. 1934) Ruth Annaqtuusi was born in 1934 in the Kazan River area. Adopted as an infant by her uncle, she grew up in Baker Lake to the north, where her guardian served as an assistant to the resident Anglican missionary. As a child Annaqtuusi enjoyed hearing the stories and experiences of Inuit who came in from the land to trade and visit the mission. She began making drawings in the early 1970s with the encouragement of the Butlers, transforming her memories and the stories she had heard during her childhood into two-dimensional images of astonishing energy and verve. Several of her drawings were subsequently turned into limited edition prints, including her famous 1982 image, Marble Island. In 1986 she contributed images and text to the book Qikaaluktut: Images of Inuit Life, on which she collaborated with the writer David Pelly. Although she has also made several wallhangings, these are far fewer in number than her drawings and prints. Essentially retired from active artistic life, today Annaqtuusi produces drawings only infrequently.The fact that Annaqtuusi did not come from the Back River area to the north, as did most of BakerLake's prominent two-dimensional artists, may account in part for the singularity of her vision andstyle. Never decorative and often intensely expressionistic, her works are loosely composed and usually dramatically coloured. Many compositions incorporate landscape motifs, and most contain crowds of people and animals. Many drawings also feature additional ghostly spirits, often giving her work a decidedly ghoulish flavour. Her most dramatic images consist of Bosch-like frenzies of gesturing figures and strange reversals: people walking on giant paddles, fish standing upright on human legs, and birds perched on human heads are some of the common sights.Selected ReferencesQamanittuaq: Where the River Widens (1994), Judith Nasby, ed.The Vital Vision: Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik (1986), Marion JacksonQikaaluktut: Images of Inuit Life (1986), Ruth Annaqtuusi and David F. Pelly----------Ruth was born in 1934 near the Kazan River and came to Baker Lake as a baby with her adoptive parents, Elizabeth and Thomas Tapatai. She is married to Hugh Tulurialik, who operates an outfitting business in Baker Lake. They have three children. Both Ruth and Hugh are singers and musicians and together they travel extensively in the north to perform at various communities. "A Canadian Inuit artist best known for her exuberant drawings, bright-colored wool duffel wall-hangings, and energetic stoneblock prints produced through the Sanavik Co-operative at Baker Lake, Northwest Territories, Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik did not turn to art until she was in her mid-thirties. Tulurialik was born in a traditional Inuit camp along the Kazan River in the Keewatin district of Arctic Canada before the establishment of permanent communities in the Canadian North. As an infant she was adopted by her aunt and uncle, Elisapee Unuqnuq and Thomas Tapatai, and was raised in the area that was to become the community of Baker Lake during the 1950s. Having worked a number of years as an interpreter for the nursing station, child care worker, and cook, Tulurialik became very interested in the arts and crafts projects that were introduced in her community during the 1960s under the auspices of the Canadian federal government. She first tried her hand at wool duffel wall-hangings but has become better known for her strongly gestural drawings and for the stonecut and stencil prints based on her drawings. Tulurialik draws inspiration for her art from the traditional ways of her Inuit culture, filling her compositions with extremely imaginative depictions of Arctic animals, Inuit in traditional dress, women with facial tatoos, shamans and spirits, fantastic birds and fish, and transformational images. Her drawings--usually in colored pencil--are highly-complex in organization and frequently fill the entire page with color. She characteristically overlays one hue over another to create complex and textured skeins of color and often extends the background nearly to the edge of the page, creating a narrow border which she leaves blank to frame her drawings. The figures in Tulurialik's drawings are firmly outlined and filled with color, and she makes occasional use of 'voice balloons' to indicate sounds or works expressed by the highly active humans, animals, and spirits that occupy the vibrant world she creates." Marion E. Jackson In "North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary" 1995. Ruth began drawing in the mid-60s under the guidance of Jessie Oonark. Her drawings usually depict everyday life scenes on the land and subjects taken from her vast knowledge of traditional stories and legends. ----------Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik was born west of Hudson Bay in the Kazan River region. Once part of The Northwest Territories, this area was included in 1999 in the new territory of Nunavut, whose name means "our land" in Inuttitut. When Ruth Tulurialik was still an infant, she was adopted by her aunt and uncle and moved to an Anglican Mission at Baker Lake. Largely a self-taught artist, she learned some drawing techniques from Inuit artist Jessie Oonark. Tulurialik recalls that her first subject of fascination was the human face. After covering "pages" with faces, she began to develop an interest in telling stories with images (Introduction, Qikaaluktut). In the early 1970s, many of her drawings were translated into stone-cut or stencil prints at the Sanavik Coop in Baker Lake. However, then, as now, Tulurialik concentrated her energies upon creating drawings and wall-hangings.During Tulurialik's lifetime, many changes have taken place in Baker Lake. What once was a handful of buildings owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, the RCMP, the Anglican Mission, and the Roman Catholic Mission has since become a hamlet of approximately 1500 people. Moreover, the Inuit living there have experienced an ever-shifting relationship with their traditional lifestyle, values, and culture. While the actions and attitudes of "southerners" - that is, people living south of these Arctic communities who are generally white and European in origin - have historically been to dismiss or to erase these traditions, more recent efforts by southerners and Inuit alike have been to try to remember and preserve them. For her part, Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik has worked hard to record the past that she has witnessed. She explains that she wishes to teach both her own people and "people down south" about the "old ways" (Introduction, Qikaaluktut) and about the consequences of imposing southern laws and values upon the Inuit. Most often, a personal memory inspires her to draw.So important to her is her role of storyteller and preserver of cultural histories that in 1984, Tulurialik enlisted writer David F. Pelly to help her publish English text beside reproductions of her drawings. Pelly would approximate Ruth Tulurialik's voice as best he could, piecing together the information that she recounted to him in Inuttitut and English. Tulurialik called the collection of images and text Qikaaluktut, which Pelly explains roughly translates to "the sounds of people passing by, perhaps outside your iglu, heard but not seen" (Introduction, Qikaaluktut). Tulurialik's stories and drawings would address a myriad of traditional and contemporary themes, comment on historical events, and offer anecdotes on topics ranging from the powers of ancient shamans to the hardships faced by Inuit in the 20th century. Among the stories told with text and images in Qikaaluktut (called Images of Inuit Life in English) is The Bad Policeman, which is now part of the AGW's permanent collection. The collection of drawings that form Qikaaluktut travelled to the AGW in 1986.-------Inuit Myths, Legends and Songs. 1982. Works by Ruth Annaqtuusi, Davidialuk,Helen Kalvak, Janet Kigusiuq, Myra Kukiiyaut, Victoria Mamnguqsualuk, Agnes Nanogak,Nancy Pukingnak. Text by Bernadette Driscoll, bibliography. 80 pp., 82 illus. (7 col.), 30.5 x22.9 cm. ISBN 0-88915-104-0. $12.95

Exhibitions

• 1987 Eskimo Art, Franz Bader Gallery
• A Culture on Paper: Baker Lake Drawings, The Innuit Gallery of Eskimo Art
• A Family Tradition: Inuit Art from Canada's Arctic, Presented by Arctic Inuit Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
• A Woman's Vision, Art Space Gallery
• Arctic Spirit 35 Years of Canadian Inuit Art, Frye Art Museum
• Art of the Eskimo: Contemporary Sculpture & Drawings from the Canadian Arctic, Gallery 100 Hudson
• Art/Facts, McMaster Art Gallery
• Baker Lake - Uncatalogued Prints 1979-1985 A retrospective collection exhibited at selected galleries, organized by, Canadian Arctic Producers
• Baker Lake Drawings, The Upstairs Gallery
• Baker Lake Drawings, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Baker Lake Eskimo Drawings - Six Artists, The Upstairs Gallery
• Baker Lake Festival: Sculpture, Drawings, and Wallhangings, The Innuit Gallery of Eskimo Art
• Baker Lake Print Collection *71, (annual collection)
• Baker Lake Print Collection *72, (annual collection)
• Baker Lake Print Collection *73, (annual collection)
• Baker Lake Print Collection *75, (annual collection)
• Baker Lake Print Collection *77, (annual collection)
• Baker Lake Print Collection *80, (annual collection)
• Baker Lake Print Collection *83/84, (annual collection)
• Baker Lake Print Collection *85, (annual collection)
• Baker Lake Print Collection *86, (annual collection)
• Baker Lake Print Collection *87, (annual collection)
• Baker Lake Print Retrospective: A Twenty Year Anniversary, The Upstairs Gallery
• Baker Lake Prints & Print-Drawings: 1970-1976, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Baker Lake Prints - Ten Year Retrospective, The Upstairs Gallery
• Baker Lake Prints 1985, The Innuit Gallery of Eskimo Art
• Baker Lake Prints and Drawings: 1970-1973, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Extension Services
• Baker Lake Prints and Print Drawings, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Baker Lake: Persistence of Old Memories, Brandon Allied Arts Council
• Building on Strengths: New Inuit Art from the Collection, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Cape Dorset Sculpture, McMaster Art Gallery
• Chisel and Brush/Le ciseau et la brosse, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
• Cold Stones, Warm Hearts: Inuit Art from the Northwest Territories, University of Richmond
• Contemporary Indian and Inuit Art of Canada, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Ottawa, presented at the General Assembly Building, United Nations
• Contemporary Inuit Drawings, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre
• Contemporary Inuit Drawings, Muscarelle Museum of Art College of William and Mary
• Drawings and Selected Prints, Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik, Baker Lake, The Upstairs Gallery
• Drawings by Anguhadluk, Annaqtussi, Kigusiuq, Kukiiyaut of Baker Lake, N.W.T., Robertson Galleries
• Drawings from Baker Lake, The Innuit Gallery of Eskimo Art
• Eskimo Fantastic Art, Gallery 111, School of Art, University of Manitoba
• Immaginario Inuit Arte e cultura degli esquimesi canadesi, Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
• Inuit Art in the 1970s, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre
• Inuit Graphics and Drawings from 1959-1990, Arctic Artistry
• Inuit Graphics from the Past, Arctic Artistry
• Inuit Graphics Through the Year: Rare Prints from the Arctic, Arctic Artistry
• Inuit Masterworks: Selections from the Collection of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, McMichael Canadian Collection
• Inuit Myths, Legends and Songs, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Inuit Traditions in Graphics: 1961-1987, Arctic Artistry
• La deesse inuite de la mer/The Inuit Sea Goddess, Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal
• Polar Vision: Canadian Eskimo Graphics, Jerusalem Artists' House Museum
• Qamanittuaq: The Art of Baker Lake, National Gallery of Canada
• Qamanittuaq: Where the River Widens Drawings by Baker Lake Artists, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre
• Qikaaluktut: Images of Inuit Life Drawings by Ruth Annaqtuusi of Baker Lake, Houston North Gallery
• Shamans and Spirits: Myths and Medical Symbolism in Eskimo Art, Canadian Arctic Producers and the National Museum of Man
• Sojourns to Nunavut: Contemporary Inuit Art from Canada, at Bunkamura Art Gallery, presented by the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology and The McMichael Canadian Art Collection
• The Coming and Going of the Shaman: Eskimo Shamanism and Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• The Inuit Amautik: I Like My Hood To Be Full, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• The Inuit Print/L'estampe inuit, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the National Museum of Man
• The Lindsay and Swartz Collections: New Acquisitions, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• The People Within - Art from Baker Lake, Art Gallery of Ontario
• The Spirit World - 1977 to 1990: Baker Lake Clyde River and Pangnirtung Prints. A retrospective collection exhibited at selected commercial galleries, organized by, Canadian Arctic Producers
• The Swinton Collection of Inuit Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• The Vital Vision: Drawings by Ruth Annaqtussi Tulurialik, Art Gallery of Windsor
• The Zazelenchuk Collection of Eskimo Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Ulu/Inua: Form and Fantasy in Eskimo Art, Casino Gallery, Ravinia Park
• Uumajut: Animal Imagery in Inuit Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery
• We Lived by Animals/Nous Vivions des Animaux, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in cooperation with the Department of External Affairs
• Works on Paper from the Permanent Collection of Inuit Art, Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec
• Works on Paper from the Permanent Collection of Inuit Art, Canadian Guild of Craft Quebec

Collections

• Amway Environmental Foundation Collection, Ada
• Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor
• Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa
• Canadian Guild of Crafts Quebec, Montreal
• Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull
• Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown
• Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Kitchener
• Laurentian University Museum and Arts Centre, Sudbury
• Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph
• McMaster University Art Gallery, Hamilton
• McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg
• Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal, Montreal
• Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
• Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Yellowknife
• University of Alberta, Edmonton
• Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg

Publications

• TAIPSUMANE — A Collection of Labrador Stories, Author: Kalleo, Josephina, Publication: Nain: Torngasok Cultural Centre (1984)