Their existence began in ancient times as man-made revenge spirits that were made from different bones and objects that were brought to life with magic spells, and put out to sea to find the person that they wanted revenge on.
Today, tupilaks have become an artistic expression that are best known in the form of small carved bone figures, but not all follow the general contemporary tale.
Mike Jacob Kristiansen, the 42-year-old architect and artist lives in Sisimiut, and one day out of the blue in 2010 he gave life to a new tupilak universe that has since grown and grown.
"It started with me sitting down and telling tupilak stories to my daughter..."
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“In the beginning it started with me sitting down and telling tupilak stories to my daughter,” says Mike, when we meet him at his home that is heavily decorated with his drawings and paintings.
“When my daughter went to bed, we would talk about what should be in the story and they were also drawn. I didn’t think very much about it in the beginning, but it evolved into a sketchbook, where I would normally draw houses and architectural sketches.”
“All of a sudden all these characters appeared and in a very short time, actually in only a few months there was a whole series of black and white ink drawings that became my first exhibition, which was simply called ‘Tupilak’.”
“It is first and foremost perhaps a little bizarre. I had probably grown tired of those little stereotypical tupilaks that you can see all over the place, so in the beginning I mixed many different groups of motifs together.”
“Since then, I have developed from line drawings into a more street art inspired collage style with neon colours and graffiti references, and today I work with ink, watercolour and acrylic paint.”
“There are people who have had tattoos of my tupilaks. There is, among others, a woman in Aasiaat who has a tattoo with three tupilak figures on the inside of her upper arm. The drawing symbolises her children, and when she has her arm against her body, she has the children close to her heart.”
“And I have also painted tupilaks on kendamas, those Japanese wooden toys that have a ball attached to a stick. It’s a fun challenge, because the surface is round.”
WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH YOUR ART NOW AND IN THE FUTURE?
“Lately I’ve been playing around with printing techniques to challenge myself, and I have also begun to experiment with new and different materials, including my daughter’s gold glitter that you can buy in the supermarket, but it gives some exciting colour effects.”
“And in relation to the future? The only thing I’m sure of is that there will be a significant shift and maybe I will create sculptures or something just as different.”
