Panigaq McDonald is a digital artist, illustrator, tattooist and graphic designer from Inuuvik, Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NT, currently based in Leduc, AB. McDonald’s practice focuses on storytelling through its choice of characters and imagery and on visual expression through digital media. McDonald has also gotten into magazine publishing, working with Tusaayaksat magazine as an assistant editor. Growing up surrounded by art, they would often attend the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuuvik with their grandmother, where they got to participate in artist-led workshops in a wide range of mediums. “That’s definitely where I got such a vast interest in different mediums. I would see people making jewelry, I’d see carvings, I’d see painting inside so many different kinds of art. I loved all of it,” McDonald says. [1]
As a teenager, McDonald began working digitally, drawn to the accessibility and the versatility of digital art, which allowed them to experiment without needing “to go out and buy certain paint and brush sets” or rely on access to art stores. In 2021, McDonald had the opportunity to be mentored by Jason Lau, editor at Tusaayaksat magazine, to develop skills in graphic design and layout. Since then, they have worked at Tusaayaksat writing and editing articles and creating illustrations and layout designs. McDonald also began tattooing in 2021 under the guidance of Arsaniq Deer, who taught them traditional hand-poke methods to create the linework of traditional tattoos as well as more contemporary line work designs. “I’m trying to research traditional tattoos from my region.”
McDonald finds influence and inspiration from many different sources, including their culture and spiritual relationships to land and animals, along with contemporary media such as video games, films, and music, which show up in their artwork through the themes and the style of design. Their work often comes from vivid dreams and imagined narratives, using line, colour and atmosphere to create experiences that are difficult to translate into words. “I can’t really find a better way to describe the things I’ve experienced,” they say, and they find that making art makes expression “really easy,” even when words fall short.
In 2021, they co-created a mural with two of their mentors, Brian Kowikchuk and Kale Sheppard, Honouring Our LGBTQ2S+ Community and Other Indigenous Ways of Being with the organization Strong People, Strong Communities in Yellowknife, NT. McDonald designed labels for Qiviut Inc., and in 2024, in collaboration with Indigenous Youth Roots they were one of many artists who contributed to a collection of oracle cards called In Motion Resource Deck. The illustrated divination cards offer insight and reflect your own truth back to you. McDonald created the designs for the drum dancing, tattoos, and Kuulik cards. “I got to be an artist for a few of those cards, so I made a card about the qulliq, drum dancing and tattooing. And actually each card ended up being a different art style,” they say.
In the future, McDonald hopes to continue tattooing. “I definitely want to see myself in community tattooing people, and giving them what they need, giving them the markings they need and making that connection with themselves through the tattooing,” they say. They also plan to continue developing their digital practice, expanding to print sales and making art to be a vendor at the Great Northern Arts Festival in 2026, emphasizing that “my understanding of art [is that] it’s for you, it’s for you to express what you need to share, what you need to tell people or tell the world, but at the same time, I don’t expect an audience, [I’m] just making art, regardless if anyone is gonna see it.”