A Place and Time to Become Wise

Rivalry Projects is pleased to present A Place and Time to Become Wise, the gallery's first exhibition of drawings by Qavavau Manumie. The exhibition will be on view from Friday, November 6 - Friday, December 18, 2026. Join us for the opening on November 6, 5:00–9:00 PM. 

Bringing together original drawings spanning two decades, A Place and Time to Become Wise offers an introduction to one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Inuit art. Internationally recognized for his printmaking, Manumie is an equally accomplished draftsman, creating imaginative drawings that move fluidly between observation and invention. He utilizes graphite, ink, and colored pencil to render people, animals, and landscapes from a world where transformation is entirely natural, and everyday life unfolds alongside the extraordinary. 

Central to the exhibition are Manumie's recurring depictions of the ‘Inuralaat’, a race of small people who are said to live mostly unnoticed alongside other humans in the Arctic. Born in Brandon, Manitoba, in 1958 and raised in Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Manumie grew up listening to his father’s stories of the Inuralaat, who were described as mysterious tricksters or, at times, protectors that shed light on human dependencies in the face of forces before and beyond us.  Appearing alongside animals, tools, and the rhythms of daily life, these figures inhabit drawings that seem to begin in the middle of a story. In some works, the Inuralaat are freeing whales caught in nets, stealing a hunter’s harpoon, or riding on the backs of animals, to name a few. Rather than illustrating a single narrative in his works, Manumie's compositions invite viewers into a world shaped by memory, humor, lived experience, and imagination.

Reflecting on his practice, Manumie has said, "I like to draw animals, and images of people, sometimes combined. I enjoy the animals and the land, and I take what I see there to my drawings." That direct relationship between observation and imagination runs throughout the exhibition, where familiar landscapes and creatures become sites of transformation, curiosity, and wonder.

The exhibition is organized in collaboration with Trotter&Sholer, New York, and Dorset Fine Arts, Toronto.

Qavavau Manumie (he/him) was born in Brandon, Manitoba, in 1958, where his mother, Paunichea, was hospitalized for treatment of tuberculosis. He returned to Cape Dorset as a very young child and has lived there since. Manumie has demonstrated a range of stylistic abilities over the years – from the very literal to the more expressive. His work is idiosyncratic and often amusing in his depictions of Inuit legends and mythology, Arctic wildlife, and contemporary aspects of Inuit life. Manumie is the latest among the second generation to attract critical acclaim from the contemporary arts audience in the south. He and Shuvinai Ashoona have been profiled, along with Nick Sikkuark of Gjoa Haven, in the Winnipeg-based arts magazine, Border Crossings. He travelled to Toronto in June of 2008 for his first solo exhibition of original drawings, and in 2009 to Vancouver for another exhibition featuring his contemporary work. He was invited to attend an opening of his work in Victoria in the fall of 2012. For several years, Manumie has worked for the Kinngait Studios as a printmaker – first in the lithography studio and more recently, in the stonecut studio. He is an accomplished and precise printmaker who enjoys the opportunity to demonstrate printmaking techniques to young artists and visitors to the studio. His work has been exhibited throughout Canada and internationally and is included in numerous public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art, among many others.