#maureen gruben

Maureen Gruben, Moving with Joy Across the Ice While my Face Turns Brown from the Sun

Inuvialuk artist Maureen Gruben employs an intimate materiality. In her practice, polar bear fur, beluga intestines and seal skins encounter resins, vinyl, bubble wrap and metallic tape, forging critical links between life in the Western Arctic and global environmental and cultural concerns. Gruben was born and raised in Tuktoyaktuk where her parents were traditional knowledge keepers and founders of E. Gruben’s Transport. She holds a BFA from the University of Victoria and has exhibited regularly across Canada and internationally. She was longlisted for the 2019 Aesthetica Art Prize and the 2021 Sobey Art Prize, and her work is held in national and private collections.

Inuvialuk artist Maureen Gruben employs an intimate materiality as she disassembles and re-combinines disparate organic and industrial elements. Polar bear fur, beluga intestines, seal skins and gathered kelp encounter resins, vinyl, bubble wrap and metallic tape, forging critical links between life in the Western Arctic and global environmental and cultural concerns. Gruben was born and raised in Tuktoyaktuk. Her parents were traditional knowledge keepers, and she spent much of her childhood sewing with her mother and trapping with her father. She has a tacit knowledge of Arctic land and the rich but increasingly precarious resources it offers for both survival and creation.

Maureen Gruben, Stitching my Landscape