77/150: Davie Atchealak’s shamans & dancing bears

Davie Atchealak ᑎᕕ ᐊᓯᐊᓪ (1947- 2006) captures the rhapsodic energy of the drum dance in this 1989 sculpture (whalebone, antler, hide, overall 35 x 75 x 24 in — 88.9 x 190.5 x 61 cm)

Few sculptors have been able to capture fluidity of posture or richness of anatomical detail with the apparent confidence and ease of Davie Atchealak. One of the great sculptors to come out of southern Baffin Island, Atchealak is particularly renowned for his expertly engineered dancing bears, and his exuberant, muscular shamans.

The image below is no ordinary dancing bear. The longer you gaze into Polar Bear/Shaman Transforming, the more detail emerges, from the screeching beak of a bird, to the hint of a smiling face etched into the belly of the bear.

Drum Dance (top of post and detail, below) sold for $73,000 at Waddingtons auction house in November, 2025. Sculpted in 1989, it is one of his most ambitious works, uniting the two subjects (bears and shamans) for which he is best known.⁠

Inuit shamans healed the sick, summoned spirits or game, and could also perform death-defying feats of strength and endurance, intervening on behalf of their community in moments of danger. In Drum Dance, Atchealak appears to have gathered the many disparate elements of the shaman’s vocation into a single scene, the massive space afforded by the whale’s skull integrating multiple vignettes that span both spiritual and physical realities.

The use of numerous vignettes in a composition is unusual for Atchealak, but is employed in the work to powerful effect, conjuring the rhapsodic energy of the drum dance.

Full biography of Davie Atchealak, here

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This is No. 77 in 150 Artists, an ongoing series on Canadian artists you should know.