ALASI AUDLA TULLAUGAK (1935-) PUVIRNITUQ (POVUNGNITUK)
Stretching a Skin, 1962 #80
Printmaker: ALASI AUDLA TULLAUGAK (1935-) PUVIRNITUQ (POVUNGNITUK)
stonecut, 17 x 15 in (43.2 x 38.1 cm)
13/30

Provenance
Private Collection, Minneapolis, U.S.A.

Ostensibly, Alasie Audla has captured a rather everyday scene of a woman stretching an animal skin. However, Stretching a Skin is a brilliant, symbolically charged image of womanhood. The woman’s body is hidden behind the skin and stretcher, which however tapers downward to suggest the traditionally female form of wide shoulders and narrower waist. The way in which this image visually unifies a traditional woman’s work with her very body can ultimately be read as a celebration of womanhood, acclaiming women’s various contributions to their communities.

Alasi Audla was one of the few women artists to participate in print production in the early years of Puvirnituq printmaking. She designed and cut her own stone blocks and probably printed her earliest prints as well.

References: This image is reproduced in Helga Goetz, The Inuit Print, international travelling exhibition, (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1977), pl. 78, p. 146.