Lot 59
MARK TUNGILIK (1913-1986)
Additional Images
Provenance:
The Upstairs Gallery, Winnipeg, MB, 1991,
Private Collection, ON
Note:
Literally, the work features five small ivory figures in a tableau, facing one another with drawn spears, while a seated figure gazes down. This work combines the mediums, stone and ivory, with which Tungilik primarily worked. Likewise, the piece contains the artist’s impossibly small but detailed figures. However, one may read the piece simply as a self-portrait of the artist admiring his own work. More profoundly, we may understand this piece as the Judeo-Christian God or a shaman observing a scene of humans in conflict. Though this small stone and ivory work will never reveal a fixed truth, it allows for a free play of interpretations.