Angela Aula is a painter and makeup artist who was born in Iqaluit, NU, and is currently based in Toronto, ON. She was inspired to start painting in 2010 by the artists around her, as well as the auctions for Inuit art. “I’ve tried beading, I’ve tried sewing, I’ve tried carving. But the one thing that really stuck was painting,” she says. [1] She primarily paints landscapes and animals, and is particularly inspired by dancing bear sculptures.
Aula began doing mural work when she started participating in Red Urban Artist Collective, a group of emerging and established Indigenous artists who aim to reclaim urban spaces for Indigenous people. She has painted murals in parks, office spaces and construction sites all over Toronto. Aula collaborates with other artists to design and paint these murals, and she also designs and paints murals by herself. Many of the murals she paints include black and white details, like the one in Coronation Park in Toronto, which features a black background with a white dancing polar bears, as well as the CN tower. She does create more colourful murals, like the one of Sedna at a construction site in Toronto, which features shades of blue and purple. Aula is inspired by other Inuit artists, like Kenojuak Ashevak, as well as family members like her mother, Saila Michael, who created wall hangings; her father, Chris Aula, who was a sculptor; aunt Naulaq LeDrew, a multidisciplinary artist and performer; and cousin Adam Alorut, who was a sculptor.
Aula extended her painting practice to makeup artistry in 2020. Passionate about Inuit culture and keen to expand her practice to a new canvas, Aula started posting makeup looks on TikTok when she found other Indigenous creators on the platform. Aula’s Preening Owl Makeup (2022) was inspired by Kenojuak Ashevak’s Preening Owl (1995), which Aula adapted on her own face. Using similar shades of yellow and red, she recreated Ashevak’s owl with great detail, using parts of her own face to complement the original image–her eyes are under the wings, mimicking the unblinking eyes of the owl, and her eyebrows follow a similar curve to the bird, bringing the art to life in a new way.
In addition to her artistic practice, Aula has recently started teaching Inuit art and culture workshops for grades nine to twelve across the Toronto District School Board. “I want to do more murals around the city... I want to keep creating and do original art on my face,” she says.