Laura Pitseolak is a multidisciplinary artist from Ottawa, ON, with community ties to Panniqtuuq, NU, and Kinngait, NU. Her practice includes drawing, painting, photography and textiles, and she has some experience with sculpting and sewing. Pitseolak’s interest and love of art was inspired by her artist family members: her great-grandfather, photographer Peter Pitseolak; grandfather, sculptor Mark Pitseolak; and her uncle, sculptor and printmaker Jamasee Pitseolak. She grew up hearing about their artistic practices and involvement in the arts community, and she has even been able to learn from some of them.“Working under them and beside them while they were doing the things that they liked really made me have another appreciation for art,” [1] she says.
Pitseolak started her artistic practice drawing with markers, pencils and charcoal and then started painting and mixing media in high school. Her earlier work features comic-style drawings of people in action, often with exaggerated expressions on their faces. In a more recent project for school, she created felt animals and Inuit people, which are based on the cautionary story of the qallupilluit, a creature that lives under the water and steals children who come too close to the shore. Currently studying environmental design at the Ontario College of Arts University (OCAD U) in Toronto, ON, Pitseolak has become inspired to incorporate nature in her work. “Instead of taking it [nature] away, we work around it and with it.”
She is inspired by comic artists like her aunt Napatsi Folger. “I love how she structures both her panels and how the drawings are unique,” she says. Elements of these structures are present in Pitseolak’s work, with most pieces featuring dynamic characters and dialogue bubbles. In 2023 she applied her drawing style to create a large-scale mural titled Monkey see Monkey.
Photography is also a main part of Pitseolak’s practice. “[I] usually have a camera on me at all times, whether it’s my digital camera or polaroid.” She was inspired by her grandparents’ photos from their youth and her grandfather Mark Pitseolak’s constant photography of everyday family life. “They all felt very intimate and like a slice of life.” The subjects in Pitseolak’s photography vary, but she is often drawn to rich colours and natural framing from objects in the environment.
In the future, she would love to create an artistic structure to be showcased in a public space like a park, “something the public could play around with and interact with,” she says. “It’s really nice seeing your pieces go from flat to a little more 3D and then seeing it really big.” She would also love to show her work at a gallery and is interested in trying her hand at oil painting and stain glass.
This Profile was made possible through support from RBC Emerging Artists.