Style combination · Contrasts

Kinngait Inuit Printmaking × Torres Strait Islander Linocut

Both are Indigenous community print studios whose cut marks pattern the inside of a figure, but Kinngait floats one flat silhouette in one to three inks on unprinted paper, while Torres Strait linocut packs a black field with incised pattern from edge to edge; choose Kinngait for a single quiet figure, Torres Strait for a dense cosmos, and keep Inuit and Torres Strait Islander imagery apart.

From the research on Torres Strait Islander Linocut

Mix them and make something Kinngait Inuit Printmaking Torres Strait Islander Linocut

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Torres Strait Islander Linocut, their arrangement from Kinngait Inuit Printmaking, the finish from Torres Strait Islander Linocut. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Kinngait (Cape Dorset) Inuit Printmaking Torres Strait Islander Linocut

Type from Kinngait Inuit Printmaking
Colour from Kinngait Inuit Printmaking: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Torres Strait Islander Linocut: Stylised figuration
Abundant decoration

Kinngait Inuit Printmaking avoids abundant decoration: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Composition from Kinngait Inuit Printmaking: Isolated object
Generous white space

Torres Strait Islander Linocut avoids generous white space: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Surface from Torres Strait Islander Linocut: Carved line

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Kinngait Inuit Printmaking

Fiesta

Caveat, standing in for From the mid-1970s, the artist's pencil signature beneath the image, beside the title and an edition number such as 43/50; up to and sometimes including 1974 the artist's carved chop stood in for the signature (Dorset Fine Arts, Stonecut: Chops). Kenojuak's syllabic signature, ᑭᓄᐊᔪᐊ, on a colour trial proof of The Enchanted Owl was added later (First Arts)

Text · Kinngait Inuit Printmaking

Prints from the Inuit co-operative studio at Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, with a catalogued collection every year since 1959. Inuit artists draw; Inuit printmakers cut the drawing in stone or a stencil and print it by hand in editions of thirty (1959) and then fifty. A single figure, most often a bird or animal, floats as a flat silhouette in one to three inks on unprinted paper, and stencil daubing grades the colour inside it. This is the classic idiom; lithographs and etchings followed from the 1970s, and Annie Pootoogook, Shuvinai Ashoona and others have drawn contemporary Inuit life.

Caveat; Kinngait Inuit Printmaking used From the mid-1970s, the artist's pencil signature beneath the image, beside the title and an edition number such as 43/50 and Small carved chops of artist and printer, often cut from linoleum floor tile, stacked with the studio's mark in a vertical column in the margin of the stonecuts and stencils, as reproduced in the 1959 and 1960 catalogues

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Kinngait Inuit Printmaking, with a counter-accent from Torres Strait Islander Linocut. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Kinngait (Cape Dorset) Inuit Printmaking Torres Strait Islander Linocut

#f3efe3 ground · 36%
#1b1a17 ink · 14%
#b5352c accent · 18%
#2c5a8c accent · 14%
#2f6a5a accent · 10%
#8f8a80 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f3efe3;
  --ink: #1b1a17;
  --accent-1: #b5352c;
  --accent-2: #2c5a8c;
  --accent-3: #2f6a5a;
  --accent-4: #8f8a80;
  --font-display: "Caveat", cursive;
  --font-text: "Caveat", cursive;
}

Use it with care

Kinngait (Cape Dorset) Inuit Printmaking: Kinngait printmaking is the living, collectively run art of an Inuit community, and its images belong to named Inuit artists and printmakers whose copyright the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative manages as their agent: license or commission work through the co-operative or Dorset Fine Arts rather than tracing a print. Borrow the system (a lone silhouette floating on open paper, one to three inks, stencil-graded colour, stone-cut edges), not a particular artist's owl, sun or hand. Do not invent Inuit spirit beings, shamans, the sea goddess or hunting rites as decoration; picture the subject the brief supplies. Never add a syllabic signature, artist's or printer's chops, the studio's mark, an edition number or the igloo authenticity symbol to generated work, and never present it as a Kinngait or Inuit print. Say 'Inuit', not 'Eskimo', except in historical names such as the co-operative's, and do not let Kinngait stand for all Inuit art: other communities, such as Qamani'tuaq (Baker Lake), have their own print studios and styles.

Torres Strait Islander Linocut: These prints are the work of named Torres Strait Islander artists, most of them living and in copyright, and their stories, totems, constellations and minaral patterns belong to particular families, clans and islands of Zenadth Kes; Mariw Minaral, the title of Alick Tipoti's 2020–2023 exhibition, means spiritual patterns, and the hidden images within his patterns are secrets that protect sacred cultural information. Torres Strait Islanders are a distinct people from Aboriginal Australians: even the V&A files Nona's print under 'Australian Aboriginal' style, so do not label the work Aboriginal, 'tribal' or generically Pacific, or blend it with dot painting or other Oceanian traditions. Commission or license work from Islander artists and their art centres, such as Moa Arts (Ngalmun Lagau Minaral) on Mua, and follow Creative Australia's Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts. Borrow only the general method of a densely carved black relief, never a particular print, an artist's figures, a legend or a constellation story; never invent Zenadth Kes legends, masks, headdresses or minaral as decoration, never add an artist's signature, and never present a generated image as a Torres Strait Islander print.

The two styles

A large stylized blue humpback whale angles upward to the right on a cream background, with cream throat stripes and spots and a gray tail. Red uppercase lettering at the top reads “RETURN.”

1957–present · North America Kinngait (Cape Dorset) Inuit Printmaking Prints from the Inuit co-operative studio at Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, with a catalogued collection every year since 1959. Inuit artists draw; Inuit printmakers cut the drawing in stone or a stencil and print it by hand in editions of thirty (1959) and then fifty. A single figure, most often a bird or animal, floats as a flat silhouette in one to three inks on unprinted paper, and stencil daubing grades the colour inside it. This is the classic idiom; lithographs and etchings followed from the 1970s, and Annie Pootoogook, Shuvinai Ashoona and others have drawn contemporary Inuit life.

A black-and-cream woodcut-style poster reads “SALT PATHS” above four people paddling a long decorated canoe. Patterned waves surround seabirds, stars, a sun-like disk, a sea turtle, fish, a ray, and shells.

1991–present · Oceania Torres Strait Islander Linocut Relief prints by Torres Strait Islander artists of Zenadth Kes, which grew from an Indigenous visual art course at Cairns College of TAFE by 1991 and the Mualgau Minaral collective on Mua (Moa) Island. Dennis Nona, Billy Missi, Alick Tipoti, Brian Robinson and others carry island carving into lino: ancestral heroes, canoes, sharks, dugong and stars interlock across a surface packed with minaral, fine incised hatching and zigzags, cut as a black key block, often with added colour, some prints over two metres long, and Robinson also sets superheroes and pop-culture icons among the minaral.

More combinations

With Kinngait Inuit Printmaking

With Torres Strait Islander Linocut

Every style combination