Kirsten Murphy
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (July 11/01) - Art appreciators grip coffee cups while glued to Susan Thurston Shirley's paintings.

The modest but approachable Rankin Inlet artist stands back. A reporter's questions about her framed, twisting rivers and lichen-covered bones are gently deflected.

The work of Kivalliq artist Susan Thurston Shirley is displayed at Nunavut's legislative assembly until August. - Kirsten Murphy/NNSL photo

"The beauty of this is it unifies artists, not regionalizes," she says.

By "this" Shirley refers to rotation of painters, sculptures and designers displaying work in the legislative assembly's famous walls in Iqaluit.

Shirley is one of a dozen Northern artists to display her work in the noted building since it opened two years ago.

The changing exhibits offer Nunavummiut and visitors a glimpse of Northern communities, traditions and landscapes as seen through artists eyes. At the same time, the ever-changing pieces keep the area's tall, white walls dressed with colour and shapes.

Shirley's June 30-to-mid-August show of 17 landscape watercolours marks the first display of a Kivalliq painter at the legislature. Five pieces sold on the show's first day. Several paintings were purchased for the Legislature's permanent art collection.

Those impressed with the work say so.

"They are simply beautiful," one admirere volunteers.

Pleased, Shirley stands and joins the viewer. The stilted answers reserved for the reporter vanish.

"They are each a special moment. When it wasn't too windy, or too cold or too many mosquitoes," she says easily.

Iqaluit resident Janet Ripley Armstrong oversees the visiting art exhibits. An established painter herself, Armstrong hails the exhibit as dynamic.

"This is an exciting show. The work is very fresh and pure with some large canvasses and big brush strokes," Armstrong says.

Shirley's exhibit remains at the legislative assembly building until mid-August. Then it returns home to Rankin Inlet.