Satan the Polar Bear, 2011

In this enigmatic drawing, a polar bear is wearing a blue garment embellished with text that reads: “Satan the Polar Bear / no brain just white white white.” Ashoona frequently integrates English and Inuktitut phrases into her drawings, though they tend to be more poetic or cryptic than explanatory. Curiously, the anthropomorphic bear, wearing mittens, is not menacing. Standing beside the bear is a human figure sporting a striped dress, her face partially obscured by the long beak of the brown bird on the far left. Emerging from a hole in its chest is an enormous snake whose sinuous body extends across the length of the composition. On the far right, a human-bird hybrid creature has opened its long, lime green beak, possibly to communicate to the others. As with many of Ashoona’s drawings, the meaning is interpretative and playful rather than didactic or pedantic.