The Outsider Art Fair is excited to announce our OAF Curated Space for 2026: From the North: Inuit Prints and Drawings from Canada, 1959 – 2025.
The presentation is organized by renowned experts Patricia Feheley and Mark London. Feheley, a Toronto-based dealer and OAF exhibitor since 2023, has championed Inuit artists for decades and was awarded the Order of Canada for her contributions. London, director of Galerie Elca London for over 40 years, is Feheley's co-founding partner of First Arts, Canada’s boutique auction house dedicated to Indigenous art.
From the North focuses on graphic expression—prints and drawings—from 1959, marking the beginning of Inuit printmaking, through 2025. The exhibition centers on works from Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset), home to the Kinngait Studio, established in 1958 and the only Arctic studio to have continuously produced prints while supporting drawing and other media. In 2025, the studio released its 66th Annual Cape Dorset Print Collection.
Over more than six decades, artists associated with the Kinngait Studio have expanded printmaking techniques from stonecut and stencil in smaller scale to lithography, etching, and aquatint. Drawing evolved in scale, media, and complexity. Since 2000, increased access to new materials and global communication has fueled experimentation and broadened subject matter, reflecting both contemporary Arctic life and global concerns.
Today, a younger generation of Intuit artists have moved to southern Canada, enrolling in art college, enjoying residencies across the world, and settling in urban areas to create their work. There has been increased collaboration with art and artists in circumpolar countries. This has brought an explosion of varied artistic expressions; painting, photography, video, performance, ceramics, and multi-media sculpture are commonplace among contemporary Inuit artists. Despite this, subject matter inevitably returns to Inuit culture and history.
From the North will be the subject of a panel discussion at OAF Talks on Friday, March 20th with moderator Mary-Dailey Desmarais, Chief Curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Further details to be announced.