SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Innovative Yellowknife painter Jennifer Walden is visiting Inuvik for the first time as she participates in the Great Northern Arts Festival this week.

"I am so excited to be going up there to meet and network with other artists and to see what kind of reception my work gets in a place where I'm not known," she said.

Artist Jennifer Walden, seen here with Dart, has made a name for herself as an innovative painter in Yellowknife. She said she is eager to meet other artists and to share her work with a new audience in Inuvik this month. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo

Walden's distinctive work, which explores Northern life through people, animals and topography, has attracted attention in Yellowknife in recent years. Several galleries have featured the artist's work and her paintings are regularly sought by local and visiting collectors.

Walden sent 15 pieces to Inuvik this month, depicting a variety of subarctic landscapes as well as wolves, polar bears and other Northern wildlife. While in Inuvik, she is painting a raven onto a five-by-four-foot canvas.

Her largest painting on display at the festival is a four-by-three-foot landscape of trees overlooking Great Slave Lake from a funky angle. Painted in acrylic, the work includes narrow rope, accentuating the deep and dynamic three-dimensional relief that is her signature.

Walden will lead a workshop during the festival that will introduce other Northern artists to her unique, ever-shifting style.

Walden began focusing on a career as an artist while attending high school in Tamil Nadu in Southern India. She studied art at McMaster University in Hamilton, then earned a degree in theatre and set-design from the University of Ottawa, after which she travelled to Cuzo, Peru, to study wildlife painting using natural pigments from the rainforest.

She embraced the North as her muse six years ago. Her landmark mural of the muskox standing guard on 49 Street is one of the most well-known pieces of public art in the city.