Qavavau Manumie (b.1958) was born in Brandon, Manitoba, where his mother, Paunichea, was hospitalized for treatment of tuberculosis. He returned to Cape Dorset as a very young child and has lived there since. Manumie has demonstrated a range of stylistic abilities over the years – from the very literal to the more expressive. His work is idiosyncratic and often amusing in his depictions of Inuit legends and mythology, Arctic wildlife, and contemporary aspects of Inuit life. Manumie is the latest among the second generation to attract critical acclaim from the contemporary arts audience in the south. He and Shuvinai Ashoona have been profiled, along with Nick Sikkuark of Gjoa Haven, in the Winnipeg-based arts magazine, Border Crossings. He travelled to Toronto in June of 2008 for his first solo exhibition of original drawings, and in 2009 to Vancouver for another exhibition featuring his contemporary work. He was invited to attend an opening of his work in Victoria in the fall of 2012. For several years, Manumie has worked for the Kinngait Studios as a printmaker – first in the lithography studio and more recently, in the stonecut studio. He is an accomplished and precise printmaker who enjoys the opportunity to demonstrate printmaking techniques to young artists and visitors to the studio.

SELECT Solo & Group Exhibitions

• Reawakening, Inuit Gallery of Vancouver, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2023

• The Uses of Enchantment: Art and Environmentalism, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, 2023

• Collaborative Drawings from the Kinngait Studios, Feheley Fine Arts, Toronto, Ontario, 2023

• New Inuit Art, National Ethnographic Museum, Warsaw, Poland, 2022

• Icons & Constellations, Marion Scott Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2021

• Across the Turtle’s Back: The Kampelmaster Memorial Collection of Indigenous Art, Mackenzie Art Gallery Regina, Saskatchewan, 2017

• Cold Dream, Marion Scott Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2016

• Floe Edge: Contemporary Art and Collaborations From Nunavut, Canada Gallery, Canada House, London, United Kingdom, 2016

• Contemporary Drawings from the National Gallery of Canada, Mendal Gallery Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 2014

• Arctic Spirit: 50th Anniversary of Cape Dorset’s Kinngait Studios, Art Gallery of Ontario Toronto, Ontario, 2010