Annie Ewaskio, "Gjoa Haven//Spectres", 2019

"I explore northern regions as “Thule” – the location-less, mythical, hyperborean land once taken as fact based on the reports of an early Greek explorer, Pytheas, whose journey to “Thule” was later recorded in some of the earliest remaining written accounts of Arctic exploration in the Western world. These paintings envision the release of old secrets, spirits, bodies, precious natural materials, and ghosts in the ice. In the face of climate breakdown, traversing the Arctic becomes casual, oil companies speculate, geopolitics intensify, and underwater archeologists solve mysteries from 19th-century lost expeditions. I insert objects and narratives from contemporary life, such as a Russian submarine’s robotic arm planting a flag on the seafloor underneath the North Pole, and envision future scenarios, like a repurposed White Castle functioning as a hub for lonely travelers on Ski-Doos."