Inuit Futures ilinniaqtuit

Darcie Bernhardt

Hailing from Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories and now based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, emerging visual artist and curator Darcie Bernhardt has already achieved a staggering amount of success in the Inuit art world. After obtaining a Fine Arts Certificate from Yukon College in 2013, Darcie enrolled in NSCAD University where she graduated in 2019 with a BFA specializing in drawing and painting. While still a student, Darcie opened her solo show, Ouiyaghasiak, which explored intimate scenes from her childhood in Gwich’in and Inuvialuit at the Anna Leonowens Gallery in February 2019.

Shortly after opening her solo show, Darcie was able to travel to Montreal for a week-long artist residency followed by an inclusion in the group installation Memory Keepers I at the Nuit Blanche Festival in Montreal in March 2019, a project curated by the GLAM Collective and made possible through the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership Project.

“What haven’t I done so far?” she says when asked about her time as an Inuit Futures ilinniaqtuk. “Since I first started [with Inuit Futures] I was able to go be a part of the first Memory Keepers at Nuit Blanche, which was a very intensive residency for me. It was a great crew and it really resonated with me how well we worked together.”

Following that first project with Inuit Futures, Darcie joined a cohort of young Inuit students and emerging arts professionals on a trip to Venice, Italy to witness firsthand the historic opening of Isuma Film Collective’s exhibition at the Canada Pavilion in the Giardini di Biennale. The Summer Institute in Venice culminated in the publication of the Venice Biennale Special Issue of Inuit Art Quarterly, the first ever all-Inuit issue of IAQ based on the Inuit Futures ilinniaqtuit’s experiences and conversations with other circumpolar artists.

Continuing her relationship with IAQ and the Inuit Art Foundation, Darcie was the featured artist at the IAF booth during Art Toronto in October 2019. “Art Toronto was more of a spotlight than I’d ever had before, I really appreciated that,” she says of the experience. “Having people interested in my work makes me want to make more.”

The weekend at Art Toronto proved to be a success, with the Royal Bank of Canada Corporate Collection acquiring her abstract painting Daydreaming about Icefishing (2018). Although Daydreaming was not among the featured work at the booth, the RBC curators expressed interest in her paintings and made their selection after discovering more of her pieces on Instagram.

Currently, Darcie continues to develop her practice and has expanded her range to include lithograph prints. Continuing to explore curatorial work, she also serves as a Curatorial Assistant at Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax, NS, and helped curate Memory Keepers II at Art in the Open in Charlottetown, PEI, in August 2019.

Darcie and Tom with Greed Story (2019), their collaboration for Memory Keepers I, Concordia University, Montreal QC, March 2019. Photo by Ossie Michelin.

Darcie Bernhardt works on her drawings for Greed Story (2019), part of Memory Keepers I, Concordia University, Montreal QC, March 2019. Photo by Ossie Michelin.

Darcie Bernhardt with Greed Story (2019), by Darcie Bernhardt and Tom McLeod, installed in FoFA Gallery vitrine, Concordia University, Montreal, QC. Nuit Blanche 2019. Photo by Ossie Michelin.

Darcie Bernhardt and Jason Sikoak sketching by the canal in Venice, May 2019. Photo by Amanda Shore.

Darcie’s interview with four Sami artists and cultural workers at the Venice Biennale were featured in the IAQ Special Issue 2019 alongside her oil pastel drawings from Venice.