Ekidlua Teevee

Ekidlua Teevee is a carver from Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU. Teevee comes from a highly artistic family; father Simeonie Teevee is also a gifted carver, mother Ningeokuluk Teevee is a profilic printmaker who has been featured in the Cape Dorset Print Collections for years, and grandfather Jamasee Teevee is a well-known graphic artist.

Family is a huge feature of Teevee’s artistic practice. He learned to carve at the age of fourteen from Napachie Ashoona, the adopted son of Teevee’s great-uncle by marriage, the late Kiawak Ashoona, OC, RCA. Teevee is proud of being related to Kiawak Ashoona, believing that he has some of Ashoona’s skills [1]. Although he himself does not draw, Teevee likes to sit with his mother while she draws, gathering inspiration from watching her work [2]. He is also inspired by his observations of animals while hunting and fishing on the land [3].

Teevee begins his pieces with a power grinder, and finishes them with hand tools [4]. Playful Dog (n.d.) shows off the high sheen he achieves on his carvings. Pictured in a play bow with his tail and ears raised, this picture of doggy domesticity is an unusually intimate look at dogs in the arctic, who are more traditionally depicted at work than at play.

Although he is particularly gifted at sculpting polar bears and birds, Teevee prefers to depict the unusual and conceptual [5]. He has done pieces to commemorate northern dog slaughter, and completed a large whalebone and stone piece about man’s best friend being fed his last meal [6]. Teevee’s work has been sold at galleries both nationally and internationally, and he was most recently exhibited in “The Unexpected” at Feheley Fine Arts in Toronto, ON, in 2012.