Susie Silook
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Sedna with Mask, 1999; Alaska, St. Lawrence Island, Siberian Yupik/Inupiaq; Walrus tusk, sea mammal whiskers, baleen, whale bone, metal, and pigment; Bequest of Thomas G. Fowler; 2007.21.389; Collection of the de Young Museum |
While the form and aesthetic appearance of Susie Silook’s (b.1960) ivory artworks reference the centuries-old circumpolar tradition of carving in walrus tusk, her subject matter is decidedly more contemporary. Her works, usually carved from a single piece of ivory and mounted on a base so that they stand upright, are deeply embedded with the oldest Inuit carving traditions, yet her subject matter diverges from the typical historic and pre-contact imagery of hunting and camping scenes (or land and sea animals) that you might expect to see carved in walrus ivory. Instead, Silook uses her considerable talents to depict themes that confront contemporary Alaska Natives, including issues of identity, spirituality, conflict and adaptation, as embodied by the female form. Her sculptures of women are so graceful and lithe that they have been compared to Amedeo Modigliani’s nudes and Léon Bakst’s depictions of Diaghilev’s dancers in the Ballets Russes[1] yet these are not portraits of delicate or timid women. Silook’s heroines resist colonization, critique violence and oppression and represent an unwavering faith in Native belief systems and Eskimo worldview.
Silook, who is of Siberian Yupik, Inupiaq and Irish descent, is originally from the Siberian village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, on the Bering Sea. Her works reflect her determination to maintain the trace of the past in the future, particularly evident in her lyrical portrayals of the female deity Sedna. One such piece, Seeking Her Forgiveness (1993), depicts an intricately carved shaman untangling the hair of the Central Arctic sea goddess Sedna in order to placate her, and thus ensure the future harvests of sea mammals and the transmigration of animal souls. Sedna is an incredibly powerful deity in Inupiat as well as in the worldview of many circumpolar Inuit cultures, and the Inupiaq oral history of this goddess reverberates with the artist. Yupik Angel (1994), in contrast, made only of walrus ivory and sinew, is a graceful meditation on religious syncretism, conveying a spiritual message simultaneously about traditional and contemporary religious beliefs.
Mining not only Inupiat belief systems but also her own personal and community histories, Silook has contributed a significant body of work to Native American art that critiques the legacies of colonization in the Arctic and the ongoing violence against women. As one of the first female carvers to gain critical acclaim in a male-dominated field, Silook has used her considerable platform to issue powerful statements such as Mask of Post Colonizational Trauma (1994), made of ivory, wood and sinew, and All the Rage (2001), a mixed media sculpture created in reaction to the horrific violence against women. These critical assessments of the impacts of colonization and assimilative strategies are belied by the poetic forms of her skillfully carved ivory works, demanding that you pay attention, that you get up close. The precarious balance between provocative subject matter and sinuous form is what makes Silook’s work such a compelling inclusion in the history of Native American art.
Silook’s work has been shown and sold all over Alaska and the United States and her sculptures can be found in the collections of the de Young Museum, the Eiteljorg Museum, the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, the Alaskan Native Heritage Centre, as well as in many other public and private collections. In 2000 she was awarded the Governor’s Award for an Individual Artist, in 2001 she held a prestigious Eiteljorg Fellowship, and in 2007 she was United States Artists Rasmusson Fellow.
[1] Janet Catherine Berlo, “Susie Silook: ‘Simultaneous Worlds’ and the Yupik Imagination,” in After the Storm: The Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art 2001, ed. W.J. Rushings III (Indianapolis: Eiteljorg Museum), 77.
Artist’s Statement
I choose to work predominantly in ivory because that is how we’ve been expressing ourselves for many centuries. I take direction from the ancestral forms of the circumpolar Inuit. In this time of climate change, my art is as threatened as the walrus, and I wonder at what is before us as people who need ice. I’ve always sought to honor my culture through my work, explore issues of identity, gender, and a changing spirituality, and have grown to appreciate and express our common experiences of being human.