'She has the persona of rock star' - Huss
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Cambridge Bay (Nov 27/00) - Tanya Tagaq Gillis is torn between what she is doing and wants to do.
Her professional life includes teaching and being a board member on the Nunavut Planning Commission. But all she really wants to do is paint.
"That's my dream, not have to work and just paint," says Gillis, who has a bachelor of fine arts from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, in Halifax, N.S.
Oils are the 25-year- old's medium of choice.
Gillis describes her work as "not really traditional, not like the prints and the carvings."
In early November, Nor-Art International Gallery in Yellowknife agreed to represent Gillis, and half a dozen of her paintings now hang in the gallery.
"She's young, fresh, talented, vivacious -- she has the persona of a rock star," says gallery owner Ken Huss.
"She's the only Inuit painter that I'm aware of that paints in impressionist style.
"And she throat sings like a dream."
Indeed, it's Gillis' throat singing that first thrust her into the Northern limelight. She's performed at Yellowknife's Folk on the Rocks and Inuvik's Great Northern Arts Festival -- it's while leading throat-singing workshops and performing in Inuvik that her paintings snagged her the Emerging Artist Award.
This past summer when Gillis performed at the Aboriginal Cultural Festival in Vancouver. she brought her paintings along.
"I like to do things that involves both of them ... I never knew that the throat singing would take off," she says, adding throat singing performances enable her to get exposure of her paintings.
Gillis calls herself a half-breed; her father is British and her mother is Inuit.
"I'm both. Being a part of two cultures creates a split. My whole life I've felt like I've had a split personality."
This split affects her artistic life. Gillis explains that she has many paintings she doesn't show.
"I paint a lot of really harsh social commentary -- like how hard it is to grow up in the North," says Gillis.
"There's one I did a while back about alcoholism and suicide. Nobody would want that on their wall. Nobody wants to think about that every day."
Gillis adds she has to conform somewhat to what she calls "aesthetics, people want something beautiful."
The personality conflict also comes to the fore when she thinks about where she belongs.
"Resolute Bay is where my family is, where my roots are. I'm stuck up here. I was born and raised up here. But there are things I really, really miss about the south, like going to a movie, or going to the bar. But when I'm in the south, I miss the really hard reality."
"If my painting took off, I'd like to travel. But I'll always live up here. The culture spurs my creativity."
Gillis will be leaving the North again soon to further her studies.
"I'm getting small-town syndrome. I'm getting too responsible. I'm going far away."
She's not certain where yet, but her three top choices are Mexico, New Zealand and New York.
"You can't go any further away than New Zealand. I might as well see the exact opposite, it helps art to see the full range."
Gillis paints every day.
"But if I get really depressed, I don't paint. It's really awful and black."
Her subject matter depends on her moods. There are over a dozen paintings in progress in her studio.
"If I'm angry, I pick one. If I'm in a beautiful, peaceful mood I'll pick another."
Unfortunately, we may never get to see the full range of Gillis' work, if she keeps by her decision to only show the world the beautiful pieces.
