Bad Hair
Description
‘Bad Hair’ by Jutai Toonoo — Cape Dorset Inuit Art from Dorset Fine Arts 2010 original hand drawing collection presented by DaVic Gallery of Native Canadian Arts.
Condition: No condition to be noted.
Description by Artist: No description by artist found.
Notes from DaVic Gallery: Simplicity with perhaps four main colours used in this composition that left Jutai impressed enough to create this drawing of could perhaps be his wife just getting off bed early in the morning. Would you have even considered this drawing to be categorized as Inuit Art had you not seen in this gallery or presented by Dorset Fine Arts? Perhaps the need to verify is what brought you to the details page for this drawing. Jutai Toonoo certainly will challenge your secured sense of what you understood Inuit Art is all about. Jutai’s drawings cast a spell on us, the magic that attracts us and keeps us staring at his works, is the intensity of life that breathes from all of his works. The viewer can feel the energy Jutai put into each of his works and now that energy attracts us, calls us to try to understand what he is expressing. That is the keyword in Jutai’s works, expression.
Such an amazing, intriguing, refreshing surprise to the Inuit Art collector and connoisseurs alike! Are you scratching your head? Don’t. Simply admire this beautiful and amazing composition that truly overflows with life energy, despite the topic, and that takes higher value when you know how and why this is such a rare piece based on the cultural background of the author. How can you not just bathe in such moment expressed with such energy Jutai pours into each and every piece he created?
He draws the subject well centered in the area with strong background to ensure her bust figure stands out. Interestingly, her hair does not feel to be the main object in this drawing that attracts the sight of the viewer. In a way the chaotic and fiery background seems to create a softening, almost endearing, subject despite the grotesqueness of the facial features of the subject. Exaggerated lines in the face and mouth, distorted facial shape, elongated eyes, flared nostrils … and yet there is softness in her eyes and in her overall demeanor.
“Good morning darling” she says. Jutai doesn’t answer or just mumbles something back thinking to himself, “OMG!” and he quickly reaches to his paper and pencils to draw this moment and as he is drawing her, his heart softens filled with loving moments they have shared over the years. At the end, the final piece is no longer about bad hair morning but about this imperfect woman that has shared her life with this imperfect man. Maybe as he stares back at the finished drawing he says back to it, “good morning”.
This portrait feels almost childlike to me again where Jutai is not after creating a masterpiece but rather to express the experience of a moment. So much expressiveness in this an all of his drawings.