Iqaluit (Nov 13/06) - A prominent Nunavut printmaker achieved a first for Inuit arts this week, and she's $50,000 richer for it.

Cape Dorset artist Annie Pootoogook won the Sobey Art Prize last Tuesday, a national honour that saw her contemporary prints beat out top artists from around the country.

Cape Dorset artist Annie Pootoogook is the winner of the 2006 Sobey prize, earning $50,000. The first Inuit winner of the prize, she is known around the country for her contemporary print work. - photo courtesy of CNW Group

"I wasn't expecting it," she said through her interpreter Chris Pudlat, during a conference call in Toronto.

"I'm happy getting the award and the money, but I'm more happy that my art will get more recognition."

She is the first Inuit artist to take home the award in its six-year history, in which artists from the East Coast to the West Coast have been honoured.

Organized by the Sobey Art Foundation, the prize is given to top young artists under the age of 40, who have shown their work in a public or commercial art gallery in the last 18 months.

The awards were announced during a high-profile affair in Montreal, according to Sobey Art Award co-ordinator Eleanor King.

"It was wonderful. (Pootoogook) was so emotional, you could tell she was so honoured. She said 'Thank you' so many times.

"She touched many people in the room. Everyone felt the importance of this event in her life. Everyone felt it in their hearts."

"It's a very significant win for Annie and a significant win for Inuit art in general," said Sarah Chaste, gallery assistant with Feheley Fine Arts, which represents Pootoogook.

"It's great to have a contemporary artist who's Inuit win."

Pootoogook is a prized member of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-op in Cape Dorset. She recently finished the Glenfiddich Artists in Residence program in Scotland, and has been invited to participate in the 2007 Documenta art show in Kassel, Germany.

Pootoogook said she is hoping to use these experiences to inspire future art. Her work captures contemporary Inuit life, filled with televisions, living rooms and other trappings of modernity.

"I draw from my own experiences," she said simply.

Chaste said her trip to Scotland had found its way into her prints, through drawings of Scottish landscapes and castles

In February, Cape Dorset was named Canada's most artistic community by Hill Strategies Research. This was thanks in part to artists like Pootoogook, Kenojuak Ashevak and Ohito Ashoona.

"I'm sure the people in my home town are happy," she said, brushing her interpreter aside briefly. "They told me good luck."

"I'm lucky."