> RUBY ARNGNA'NAAQ


Ruby Arngna'naaq is an Inuk from Baker Lake, Nunavut, now residing in Ottawa. She was a founding member of the art-producing Sanavik Inuit Cooperative in Baker Lake in 1970 and one of Sanavik's first printmaking shop managers and art directors. She co-produced "Inuit Myths and Legends" for the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) and co-directed "Ikajurti: Midwifery in the Canadian Arctic" for IBC in 1990. She has worked in the Inuit cultural sector as a political activist, a representative on arts boards and marketing agencies, and as Northern Liaison for "The First Minister's Conference on Aboriginal Rights and Aboriginal Consultation on Justice Issues".


> SHEILA BUTLER


Sheila Butler is an artist and teacher, working primarily in drawing/painting. She has exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions in Canada and abroad, recently in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in December 2002. Her work is included in collections such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, The University of Toronto and the Winnipeg Art Gallery, among others. With her colleague Diane Whitehouse, Sheila Butler is a founding member of Mentoring Artists for Women's Art. Since 1989 Butler is a member of the Visual Arts faculty at the University of Western Ontario, teaching courses in studio production and contemporary theory and criticism.


> JACK BUTLER


Jack Butler's art practice links visual art and medical science. He exhibits installations, video projections, and computer animations internationally. His work is in public and private collections including the National Gallery of Canada. He is a founding member of Sanavik Inuit Cooperative, Baker Lake, Nunavut. Butler has thirty years experience as a medical model builder and published researcher in human development. He taught at Carnegie Mellon University, at the Banff Centre and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. As an adjunct to his art practice, Butler is a licensed Personal Representative with Primerica Financial Services of Canada.


> PATRICK MAHON


Patrick Mahon is an artist/teacher whose internationally exhibited work reveals how art gains “currency” in cultural contexts. Mahon produces works of art for public institutions that link an analysis of commodity culture to gallery fine art collecting policies. Mahon worked as an elementary school teacher in the Canadian Arctic in the 1980’s, a position that informed him as to how colonialism continues to exist in northern Canada. As current Chair of Visual Arts at the University of Western Ontario, Mahon contributes extensive knowledge of contemporary cultural theory to “Art and Cold Cash.”


> WILLIAM NOAH

William Noah was born in a traditional Inuit camp on the Back River in the Canadian Arctic. The youngest of thirteen children, he moved with his mother, the artist Jessie Oonark, into the settlement of Baker Lake in 1958. As a way to earn money in the settlement, Oonark encouraged him to draw. Now exhibiting internationally, Noah's drawings, prints and paintings reflect the progressive urbanization and Westernization of Baker Lake. He combines traditional hunting with art-making and settlement life. Noah has been a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, a Board member of the Nunavut Planning Commission and the elected Mayor of Baker Lake.