Germaine Arnaktauyok

The Power of Tunniq, 2006, etching and aquatint. This print illustrates the supposed incredible strength of the Dorset People, who lived in the Canadian arctic before the arrival of the Inuit.

Germaine Arnaktauyok (born in Maniitsoq, Greenland in 1946) is an Inuk printmaker, painter, and drawer originating from the Igloolik area of Nunavut, then the Northwest Territories. Arnaktauyok drew at an early age with any source of paper she could find.

The media she works with consists of lithographs, etchings, and serigraphs that illustrate Inuit myths and traditional ways of life from her past experiences and ancestral culture. Her designs are two-dimensional revealing expressive line work illustrations that indicate personal stories incorporated in the subject of past Inuit tales.

Family Until the mid 1960s, she lived with her family in a camp inland from the town where seals and caribou were plentiful for hunting. Therese Nattok and Isidore Iytok, the mother and father of Germaine Arnaktauyok, are talented carvers that contributed to the Inuit style of art. Arnaktauyok was the third of eight children. She was the oldest daughter in the family.

Religion Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism were the two religions that were practised in the Igloolik region. Priests were available in the towns and occasionally visited the camps in order to listen to the community's confessions and provide spiritual support. the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Canada, the British Museum, the McMaster Museum of Art, and the Peabody Essex Museum. The Winnipeg Art Gallery purchased her prints in 2024.

She created some animations for the 2018 drama film Tia and Piujuq, which also featured a book of her art as a plot point within the story.

Personal life Arnaktauyok married in 1976, and had her daughter, Amber. The family lived in Langley, British Columbia, and for ten years Arnaktauyok was not actively producing art. She split up with her husband in 1989, and moved back to Yellowknife where she focused on making art. In 1992, she moved back to Iqaluit to study printmaking with Kyra Fischer at Arctic College for a year. Since then, Germaine Arnaktauyok has been actively engaged in creating drawings and etchings that reflect her personal life in historical Inuit narratives.

Books Germaine is the co-author and illustrator of My Name is Arnaktauyok: The Life and Art of Germaine Arnaktauyok.

She also illustrated the short comic Kiviuq Vs Big Bee. Written by Jose Kusugak and published by Renegade Arts Entertainment in the Arctic Comics anthology in 2016.

Germaine has also illustrated many books including: Inuit Spirit: A Colouring Book by Germaine Arnaktauyok Those That Cause Fear Way Back Then Kiviuq's Journey.