Considered one of the most gifted artists of his generation, Manasie Akpaliapik, originally from Baffin Island in Nunavut, more specifically the Village of Ikpiarjuk (Arctic Bay), was born in 1955 within a small community of seal hunters.
From childhood, he sculpted by observing family members, including his grandparents. Starting in the early 1980s, he embraced sculpture as a profession. And it’s in Southern Canada, more precisely in Montréal and Toronto, that the work of this extraordinary observer of oral tradition, moral values, wildlife, the supernatural world and the Arctic environment will develop.
The sculptor favours natural, animal-sourced materials such as whalebone, caribou antlers, walrus or narwhal ivory. He is also a virtuoso of stone carving, some of his pieces crafted on occasion from Brazil soapstone, dolomite or marble.
Based on this collection consisting of more than 50 remarkable sculptures made between the early 1980s and the mid-2000s, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec has the biggest existing collection of works by Manasie Akpaliapik.
With Manasie Akpaliapik.Inuit Universe exhibition, the Musée proposes to his visitors a selection of 40 sculptures forged between 1997 and 2003 in the fertile imagination of this masterful creator. They come from the great Inuit art collector Raymond Brousseau who, in 2005, made a remarkable donation to the MNBAQ.
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