Four circles and a few curved lines are all it takes to articulate the charismatic face of an owl, at least in the hands of a masterful artist such as Kenojuak Ashevak, CC, ONu, RCA (1927–2013). In her famed print The Enchanted Owl (1960) it is the use of positive and negative space that brings about an enduring and fantastical image of this beloved bird, where speckled body and clawed feet are resolved with deft precision and elaborate plumage extends like long tendrils against a blank background.
In its variously coloured iterations (be it a gradient of orange and black, yellow and blue, or a block of cobalt) the owl stands proud like a silhouette against an unknowable sky, or else a vision that has no fixed place in our temporal realm. In this print it is not only the inked surface that expresses the chosen subject, but its absence. Negative space is far more than a passive and empty vessel—it is a protagonist in its own right.
Kenojuak Ashevak Enchanted Owl (1960) Printer Iyola Kingwatsiak Platemaker Eegyvudluk Pootoogook Stonecut 55.8 x 65.7 cm REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS COURTESY WADDINGTONS AUCTIONEERS AND APPRAISERS, TORONTO ALL © THE ARTIST
The Enchanted Owl has become a renowned symbol of Inuit art and represents the distinct tradition of printmaking that first emerged from Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU, in the 1950s before gaining traction in other settlements such as Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake), NU, and Ulukhaqtuuq, Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NT. To posit exactly why the roots of negative space have remained so significant within this world of Inuit prints, one must unpack a unique set of circumstances born from material, technique, geography, colonialism, and artistic heritage.
As one of the early artists to join the Kinngait studio, Ashevak was exposed to the aesthetic influences and techniques imparted by James Houston, who saw the potential of an arts co-operative in Kinngait following his arrival in 1951. [1] After identifying printmaking as a viable form of art production and subsequent income (not least because pictures could be produced in multiples), Houston spent several months in Japan in 1958, studying woodblock printmaking under revered artist Hiratsuka Un’ichi so that he might help Kinngait artists set up a similarly successful enterprise.
Historically, it is the highly coloured and elaborate ukiyo-e prints or “pictures of the floating world” that are among Japan’s most recognized, prints which share a characteristic flattened perspective, acutely detailed patterns, and an unmistakable black key line on which the entire composition hangs.
Innukjuakju Pudlat Female Owl (1960) Printmaker Lukta Qiatsuq Stonecut 31.8 x 39.4 cm REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS COURTESY WADDINGTONS AUCTIONEERS AND APPRAISERS, TORONTO
However, Hiratsuka eschewed ukiyo-e in favour of a more expressive style known as sōsaku-hanga or “creative prints.” This movement embraced elements of the European avant-garde and sumizuri-e, a monochromatic form of printing which predates innovations in colour and relies on the potency of a blank surface to articulate a scene, be it a snowcapped mountain, a still lake, or the curve of a traditional rooftop. Techniques such as tsukibori (a cutting method that creates a rough, expressive edge in woodcuts) and a form of suriage (hand rubbing) that used heavily inked blocks to produce high-contrast images informed Houston’s teachings when he returned to Kinngait. [2] Another distinct trace is the presence of the hanko or “name seal” used throughout Japanese art, which was adopted by the Kinngait studio to authenticate the studio’s output.
One obvious difference between Japanese prints and their ensuing Arctic counterparts is material. While Japan utilized its plethora of trees, wood was not as readily available to Inuit artists. Therefore, an alternative was found in local stone such as serpentine and limestone, which were already used in the centuries-old tradition of sculpture within Inuit artistry. The fluid, curvaceous forms and stylistic brevity typical of these three-dimensional works naturally informed this newer output, thanks to the inherited skills of those who undertook it. The expertise involved in stone carving actually resulted in Kinngait implementing a production-line method by which the artist or draftsman would pass on a design to a cutter. The translation involved in reimagining a drawing as a print is exemplified in the work of Lukta Qiatsuk (1928–2004), who was esteemed as both a sculptor and printmaker. For example, he printed pieces for Innukjuakju Pudlat (1913–1972), Kiakshuk (1886–1966), and Lucy Qinnuayuak (1915–1982), all of whom express avian motifs through a dynamic understanding of intersecting shapes and graphic line. In Pudlat’s Female Owl (1960), for instance, the image of a mother protecting her young is beautifully articulated through their negative imprints upon her body.
Annie Mikpiga Adventure (1965) Stonecut 75.6 x 59.7 cm
In documentary photographs of the early printing process, the laboriously carved stones retained their crude edges. Although typically these fractured surfaces are invisible in the final print, in some cases they inform the basis of a design, as seen in works by the likes of Annie Mikpiga (1900–1984), Juanisialu Irqumia (1912–1977), and Josie Pamiutu Papialuk (1918–1996), all of whom appear in the portfolios of Puvirnituq, Nunavik, QC, in the 1960s. In Mikpiga’s Adventure (1965) the formation is the perfect setting for a mythical tangle of humans, animals, and giants, who appear trapped in a dark, nightmarish perimeter that once again floats in white space. Irqumia’s Building a Kayak (1965) and Papialuk’s Tattooed Face (1965) both use the same methodology to produce scenes that seem suspended within a roughly hewn frame.
In Ulukhaqtuuq, which established a studio with influence from Kinngait expertise, similar approaches to stonecut took hold, this time using locally quarried limestone. A preference for simplistic, graphic shapes and utilizing both negative space and white line to define various motifs is evident throughout the earliest collections. These include Bear Catching Seal (1968) and Life in an Igloo and Duck Hunt (both 1967), all by Helen Kalvak, CM, RCA (1901–1984). Meanwhile, in Famished Owlets (1967) by Agnes Nanogak Goose (1925–2001) it is the bright white of the mother bird’s eyes that give the print its melancholy charm.
Helen Kalvak Life in an Igloo (1967) Printmaker Jimmy Memorana Stonecut 45.7 x 61 cm COURTESY ART GALLERY OF SUDBURY
This prevalent use of seemingly vacant space can also be traced to another significant form of printed imagery by way of stencils. Scholars have made the link with the kappazuri paper stencils Houston would have seen in Japan, but the broad uptake among Inuit stencil prints can also be traced to pre-existing Inuit traditions of textile production, including appliqué. [3] In fact, it was a motif that Ashevak sewed as part of a sealskin handbag that first attracted Houston’s attention and led to her early print Rabbit Eating Seaweed (1959). [4] Qamani’tuaq artists Irene Avaalaaqiaq Tiktaalaaq, RCA, and Jessie Oonark, OC, RCA (1906–1985) both had a background in appliqué too, and they continued to work in textiles while using the language they had already developed to inform print compositions filled with repeated, defined shapes that exist within blank spatial fields. [5] For example, Tiktaalaaq’s stencil prints Human Water Worms (1975) and Bird Were Frightened by the Eyes in the Potatoes (1981) have a sense of movement and rhythm achieved by the interaction of recurrent motifs with un-inked white space. Similarly, Oonark uses visual mirroring and a clever balance of exterior and interior negative space in multicoloured works such as A Shaman’s Helping Spirits (1971).
Notably, this print is a mix of both stencil and stonecut, a method favoured by Oonark which is in keeping with Qamani’tuaq artists’ early engagement with experimental “mixed media” approaches, including wet and dry application, ink spattering, and a combination of printing techniques. [6] The result is an ongoing, playful interpretation of colour and texture that continues to utilize a deft balance of negative space.
Jessie Oonark A Shaman’s Helping Spirits (1971) Printmaker Thomas Sivuraq Stonecut and stencil 94 x 63.5 cm COURTESY FIRST ARTS
Further remarkable stencil examples that experiment with negative compositional innovation, tonal variation, and ingenious perspectives come from Niviaksiak (1908–1959), another Kinngait studio artist. In pieces such as Man Hunting at Seal Hole in Ice, Bear Hunter on Sea Ice, and Polar Bear and Cub in Ice (all 1959), swathes of un-inked paper are used to express ice formations, a furred paw, or the impenetrable landscape a hunter would encounter while approaching prey. The collapsing of traditional Western perspective (as seen in Bear Hunter on Sea Ice) is also evident in later works such as Netsilik River (1973) by Pitseolak Ashoona, CM, RCA (c. 1904–1983), which uses the negative imprint of the river to form the focal point of the image.
Niviaksiak Bear Hunter on Sea Ice (1959) Printmaker Oshaweetuk Ipeelee Stonecut 24.8 x 36.8 cm REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS COURTESY WADDINGTONS AUCTIONEERS AND APPRAISERS, TORONTO
This narrative structure is an ongoing motif in other print studios, too. The earliest portfolios issued in Panniqtuuq, NU, feature beautiful depictions of travel and hunts where white space plays a vital role in alluding to snow, ice, and water. Examples include Man Paddling Kayak (1976) by Pauloosie Karpik (1911–1988), A Good Hunt, The Journey, and Dog Team (all 1972) by Nicodemus Nowyook (1902–1985), and Caribou Hunt (1972) by Tommy Nuvaqirq (1911–1982). Nuvaqirq’s wonderful “Lou” (1972), goes even further, using just a few dots to suggest an underwater expanse.
Nicodemus Nowyook The Journey (1972) Printmaker Tommy Evik Stonecut 33.7 x 48.9 cm COURTESY WADDINGTONS AUCTIONEERS AND APPRAISERS, TORONTO
While stonecut and stencil techniques exemplify a preoccupation with negative space as an aesthetic and narrative device, this notion has also carried forward into newer forms of printmaking in Inuit studios, such as lithography and etching. Although these processes are adept at producing greater tonality and expressive lines that are more akin to drawing, the stonecut approach to negative space has persisted. One need only look at the most recent Kinngait portfolios to see the evidence. Ningiukulu Teevee and Pauojoungie Saggiak’s lithographs in the 2025 Cape Dorset Print Collection combine colour and texture with an astute appreciation of negative space and unadorned backdrops. Negative space in stonecuts remains equally popular, with Pitseolak Qimirpik’s Scenes (2024), Qavavau Manumie’s Lost Soul (2024), and Saimaiyu Akesuk’s Long Flight (2021) all retaining the same compositional refrain that has persisted for over 60 years.
Qavavau Manumie Lost Soul (2024) Stonecut 35.8 x 30.2 cm REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS COURTESY NANOOK INUIT ART GALLERY
Despite this rich history, a fascination with the graphic binary inherent within relief printing is by no means an exclusive Inuit preoccupation. It has aesthetic affinities with the earliest examples of Chinese “new year prints,” which feature black-inked figures floating within blank, unprinted surfaces. [7] The potent clarity also found fans among the German Expressionists and Mexican artists who sought a new home-grown visual language at a time of revolution and political turmoil.
One can make associations with the colonial art initiative at Rorke’s Drift in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, too, which was set up only a few years after the Kinngait studio (1963, to be exact) to provide an artistic education for Black South Africans at a time of apartheid segregation, therefore hopefully providing a path to financial enterprise that was otherwise curtailed by racist government policies. [8]
Niviaksiak Polar Bear and Cub in Ice (1959) Printer Kananginak Pootoogook Platemaker Iyola Kingwatsiak Stencil 34.3 x 61 cm REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS COURTESY FIRST ARTS
Much like the situation in Kinngait, resources were extremely scarce, and a strong history of wood carving informed affinities with relief printing. The graphic style that followed is one that informed the development of Modern South African art, thanks to artists such as Azaria Mbatha and Sokhaya Charles Nkosi, who reimagined Christian symbolism through the lens of the Black Consciousness Movement, and Daniel Sefudi Rakgoathe, who commanded an inversion of traditional negative space to create metaphysical imagery, producing prints defined by white lines that seem to radiate from the darkness.
The affinities between the relief prints of South Africa and Inuit Nunangat are born from both entirely disparate, yet equally familiar, circumstances. Artists in both regions are informed by an ability to take foreign influences and make them entirely their own, with distinct stylistic sensibilities and formal clarity that could be broadly termed a “recognisable style.” For Inuit artists, negative space is a vital component of this creative identity, and while not wholly unique, has become a powerful tool with which to engage in narrative storytelling, mythic symbolism, and the exploration of more utilitarian motifs. Ultimately, it is a technique that continues to shape the path of Inuit printmaking in all its myriad forms.
Holly EJ Black is a London-based journalist and Contributing Arts Editor at The World of Interiors. She studied Graphic Design at London College of Printing and holds a Masters in Curating from Chelsea College of Arts. Her latest book is The Story of Printmaking: A Global History of Art, published by Yale University Press.
NOTES
[1] Leslie Boyd Ryan, Cape Dorset Prints, a Retrospective: Fifty Years of Printmaking at the Kinngait Studios (Pomegranate, 2007).
[2] Norman David Vorano et al., Inuit Prints: Japanese Inspiration: Early Printmaking in the Canadian Arctic (Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation, 2011).
[3] Susan Gustavison, “The History of Sealskin Stencils,” Inuit Art Foundation, June 2020, inuitartfoundation.org/inuit-art-quarterly/iaq-online/the-history-of-sealskin-stencils
[4] National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada, and Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, The Inuit Print: A Travelling Exhibition of the National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, Ottawa (National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada, 1980).
[5] Ibid.
[6] George Swinton, “Baker Lake: Collaborative Prints,” Baker Lake Annual Print Collection 1972, 1972.
[7] Sung-Nien Po and David Johnson, Domesticated Deities and Auspicious Emblems: The Iconography of Everyday Life in Village China (University of California Berkeley, 1992).
[8] Philippa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin, Rorke’s Drift: Empowering Prints. Twenty Years of Printmaking in South Africa (Double Storey Books, 2003).