Gilbert Hay
Location: Nain, Labrador
Gilbert Hay
“Look at us today. For the last 150 or 200 years our culture has been sabotaged by you guys, your values. I’m wearing your clothing. Any culture tries to hold onto what it’s losing. We were and still are trying to document our own history”
(Gilbert Hay in Inuit Art Quarterly 1990:11).
ROOTS: Born in 1951, in North West River, but grew up in Nain, Nunatsiavut.
WHEN AND HOW HE GOT STARTED: In 1972, as his only source of income.
INFLUENCES: “I left Labrador to go around North America. Then I went home and found my culture. That experience enriched my art and brought me to a conclusion of a sort. Not every young Inuk can go outside and experience the world and learn to appreciate their culture and express it in their art” (Gilbert Hay 1991a:21).
MEDIA: Carves (ivory, whale bone, antler, soapstone, anorthosite, and labradorite); also did some lithography in St. John’s and Cape Dorset.
FORMAL ART TRAINING: A goldsmithing course from John Goudie, a well-known jeweller in Nunatsiavut. In 1989, he participated in a workshop organized by the Inuit Art Foundation. In 1991, he participated in a session on neo-mythology at the Banff Centre for the Arts.
SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENT: In 1985, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador commissioned a one ton serpentine sculpture, Nuikkusemajak ("has visited"), for the lobby of the Confederation Building annex in St. John's.
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