Profile: Megan Kyak-Monteith
Photo courtesy of Megan Kyak-Monteith
Originally from Pond Inlet, NU, artist Megan Kyak-Monteith relocated to Antigonish, NS, at the age of 10 with her family. In the spring of 2019, she graduated from NSCAD University with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Studies with a specialization in drawing and painting. Since then, Megan has worked from a studio at home where she continues to paint and do freelance illustrations. Her work has appeared in publications such as Inuit Art Quarterly, Inuktitut Magazine, and a series of children’s books, The Nunavummi Reading Series.
While her illustrations vary between digital and watercolour works, Megan’s often monumental paintings are done exclusively in her signature medium of oil paint. Whale Hunt: I Think Everyone is Here (2019), spanning an impressive 7.5’ x 5’, depicts the community of Igloolik hauling a whale to shore, an image that she recalls from the recesses of her own memory, which is a recurrent theme in her artistic practice.
“For the past two or three years, I’ve been mostly focusing on my own history growing up in Nunavut and recalling different memories I can put down on canvas or paper, often just for my own interest,” she says. “I find the memories that stand out the most usually have to do with food, hunting or watching people bring in traditional food together. Food for us really is a community effort.”
Megan working on Maktaaq (2019) for Memory Keepers I, Concordia University, Montreal QC, March 2019. Photo by Amanda Shore.
Upcoming in the spring of 2020, Megan will also be working to animate Whale Hunt in collaboration with Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax, NS. This is not the first time she has brought one of her paintings to life: Large Feast on a Bed of Cardboard (Maktaaq) (2019) was animated for the Inuit Futures led installation Memory Keepers I, a group exhibition curated by the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) Collective, at Concordia University’s FOFA Gallery, in March 2019. The animation features images of her grandmother’s hands cutting and preparing maktaaq for the family on a cardboard surface, which is a common means of preparing country food. “Being able to animate the pieces makes them feel that much more real to me,” Megan adds.
As an ilinniaqtuk with the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership: The Pilimmaksarniq / Pijariuqsarniq Project, Megan’s work was installed in Memory Keepers I in Montreal, QC and Memory Keepers III / Nujimikwite’taqatijik III in Halifax, NS. Megan and her fellow Inuit Futures ilinniaqtuk Darcie Bernhardt were guest curators for Memory Keepers II / Nujimikwite’taqatijik II in Charlottetown, PEI. Her involvement with Inuit Futures brought her to Venice, Italy for the 58th Venice Biennale in May 2019 and to Montreal, QC, to attend the 21st Inuit Studies Conference in October 2019. While she emphasizes the importance of the professional network she has been able to build as an ilinniaqtuk, she also recognizes the ways in which it has fostered community and cultural connections across the country .
“I get to reach out to people as connections and as friends that I can talk to. If I need help with something, I know who does what and I don’t feel nervous to try different things. It’s brought me closer to Inuit across Canada beyond just my connections to the Baffin Island regions and Nova Scotia.”
Megan Kyak-Monteith sketching Sami artists while they're interviewed by Darcie Bernhardt for Inuit Art Quarterly, Venice May 2019. Photo by Amanda Shore.
Maktaaq (2019) by Megan Kyak-Monteith, installed at Concordia's 4th Space for iNuit Blanche, Montreal QC. October 2019. Photo by Enitan Adebowale.