Maggie Napartuk is a multidisciplinary artist from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, QC, who grew up in Puvirnituq, Nunavik, QC, and is currently based in Montreal, QC. Her artistic practice consists of ice sculpting, soapstone carving, jewellery making, illustration, and printmaking. Her bold monochromatic prints reflect the endurance of Inuit traditions while celebrating the relationships between landscapes and their inhabitants. [1]
In 2013, Napartuk started her artistic practice with ice sculpting at the Puvirnituq Snow Festival, a biennial winter festival held in Puvirnituq that celebrates Inuit traditions. “Ever since I was young, in my preteens and early teenage years, I would watch our sculptors do snow sculpting and ice sculpting, and I always admired that,” she says. [2] She continued ice sculpting at the festival and then expanded her practice to printmaking in 2015 when she participated in a workshop. In this workshop she produced her first three linocut prints. Napartuk started making jewellery in 2016 after learning at another workshop in Inukjuak, Nunavik, QC, where she learned how to work with copper, sterling silver, ivory, and stones. This same year, she received a grant from the Aumaaggiivik Nunavik Arts Secretariat to undertake a linocut printmaking workshop in Montreal, QC.
Napartuk is also a seamstress, often making amautik, and is also a beader by hobby. “I do beading for therapy to enjoy peace and quiet,” she says. She learned how to sew by watching her mother, who eventually passed down her patterns.
“My inspiration always comes from our homeland, our culture, our traditions, and Inuit activities, along with our traditional tools that came from our ancestors,” she says.
Napartuk is also inspired by her artist family members, like her uncle Lucassi Echalook, who was a soapstone carver/sculptor. During her first years of printmaking, Napartuk learned that her great-uncle Henry Napartuk (a.k.a. Senaji) was a soapstone carver/sculptor and printmaker. “That was really touching, to have gotten into printmaking and soon enough to learn that my great-uncle was a printmaker, and our work is very similar,” she says.
In 2025, Napartuk’s work was featured at the Ottawa Art Gallery in the exhibition Revival: Printmaking in Nunavik (2014–2019). The touring exhibition was co-curated by Napartuk, Lyne Bastien, and Qumaq M. Iyaituk.
Over the years, Napartuk has facilitated and participated in numerous workshops across Nunavik and Quebec to share and learn about printmaking skills. In 2024 she stepped away from teaching to focus on herself and her work. “I still want to share my experiences. . . . It’s always going to be in my heart. It’s just that I’m giving time to myself right now,” she says.
In the future, Napartuk would like to create work that combines several mediums.