Natar Ungalaaq

Natar Ungalaaq is a talented filmmaker, actor and sculptor from Igloolik, NU. Ungalaaq began his artistic practice carving when he was a child using his grandparent’s tools, eventually selling his works to buy camera gear along with Zacharias Kunuk to start an Igloolik based production company known as Isuma Productions. Ungalaaq has acted and appeared in many films and television shows most notably starring as the lead Atanarjuat in Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. He made his directorial debut in 2016 with the film Searchers (2016).

He is also a talented carver. Ungalaaq’s carvings are often made from stone and depict traditional Inuit imagery and practices. Ungalaaq has been known to also incorporate animal hair into some of his carvings, such as Sedna with Hairbrush (1985). Ungalaaq represents the goddess Sedna in white soapstone reclining on a rock with her fish like tail wrapping around the bottom of the stone.

Sedna’s hair is made from fur and sticks out around her head, creating halo of red. In her right hand she holds a bone hairbrush. Ungalaaq’s sculptures are boldly carved with minimal amounts of negative space and with figures always seemingly caught mid-action.