Ningiukulu Teevee remembers seeing her classmate Saimaiyu Akesuk drawing on a piece of paper when the two were at Nunavut Arctic College studying to be teachers in Kinngait.
It was 2011. Akesuk was bored and trying to keep her eyes open.
“I noticed her doodling and I saw one that I really liked,” Teevee said.
Teevee said told Akesuk that she was an artist — something Akesuk said she had never considered herself to be. It’s at that moment, Akesuk said, she started realizing that her “doodling” might be different from that of others.
“She was already an artist. She just didn’t know it,” Teevee said.
Nunatsiaq News met up with Teevee and Akesuk at the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative studio in Kinngait on July 18, where the pair now work as artists.
Teevee is an accomplished graphic artist and writer in her own right. Her work was featured earlier this year in an exhibit across the Atlantic in the United Kingdom.
Akesuk creates art for international clothing retailers such Canada Goose and has had her art shown across the United States from Oregon to New York and even internationally, as part of an exhibition in South Korea.
Last week, she was colouring another one of her drawings as well as posing for a picture for clothing retailer Artizia, for a possible future collaboration.
Akesuk grew up in Kinngait, renowned for its Inuit art. Her grandfather was a carver, and she was always surrounded by art. But she didn’t enjoy it then. Now she respects it.
“I was hesitant,” she said. “I didn’t have an understanding of art.”
Saimaiyu Akesuk ,left, says it was her friend Ningiukulu Teevee, right, who saw an artist behind a bored student doodling in class. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
Her first drawing was “half-human with wings” and the second one was a landscape. She said she “absolutely hated” both of them.
For the third drawing, she sat in front of the black canvas and stared at it for a long time.
“I’m not sure. It was at least two or three hours,” she said. “And then I remembered my grandpa and one of his carvings. I started drawing one of his birds.”
That was the first drawing she was able to sell.
Since then, Akesuk has been drawing mostly birds. Happy birds, dancing birds and simply birds that are enjoying themselves.
Akesuk is also a full-time grandmother to an adopted baby. She resigned from being a Grade 2 teacher shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic, after five years in the profession.
Since resigning, Akesuk has travelled to Miami with Canada Goose in December to present three of her prints — Nanuq, Ijirait and Nirliit — at the 2023 Art Basel Miami Beach art show.
Before that, she travelled to New York City in 2015 and Portland, Ore., where her drawings were exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and Froelick Gallery.
“I am surprised as much as everyone,” Akesuk said about her success.
“I always thought I would be a teacher forever and I only lasted five years. I never thought I would become known like this.”
