Mary K. Okheena

Mary Kapbak Okheena (also goes by Memorana, Krappak, Kappak) is an Inuvialuk graphic artist known for her stencil prints including "Musk-ox Waiting for the Tide to Cross Water" and "Shaman Dances to Northern Lights" (1991), drawings and embroidery. She is part of the third generation of organized graphic artists in the Canadian Arctic. Okheena has five children and she currently lives in Ulukhaktok where she practices embroidery and makes wall hangings. She was invited by the Roman Catholic missionary, Father Henri Tardy, OMI (born on 28 November 1917, in Vidalon-lès-Annonay, today a hamlet in the commune of Davézieux, Ardèche, France where the Montgofier family manufactured paper since 1534; he died February 7, 2004, in St. Albert, Alberta, aged 86 ), to help with stencil printing after she made a large embroidery design for his church. taught Okheena how to make waxed-paper stencils. She started printing in 1977 when John Rose, the Holman Print Shop manager, asked her to come and learn printmaking. Okheena began her professional printing career by printing other artists’ images, which are included in annual Holman print collections from 1979 and 1980-1981. In 1986, Okheena began printing her own works at the Holman Print Shop

Artwork

Print Mary K. Okheena uses a specific stencil technique in her prints to achieve subtle and luminous gradations of colour. Okheena abstracts formal qualities of animal and human forms. at the Art Gallery of Guelph 1993 - Inuit Art: Tradition and Regeneration at the Canadian Museum of History 1995 - Keeping Our Stories Alive: An Exhibition of the Art and Crafts from Dene and Inuit of Canada at Institute of American Indian Arts Museum 2001 - Holman: Forty Years of Graphic Art organised by the Winnipeg Art Gallery Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife,

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