GRRR! PROGRAM
DEDICATION TO A FRIEND: ALOOTOOK IPELLIE (1951-2007)

 In the year 2005 a guest of International Festival of Authorial comic strip GRRR!, in Pancevo was Inuit (Eskimo) artist  Alootook Ipellie(pronunciation Alutuk Ipele),whose work and personality left a deep impact both on visitors and participants of the festival. In September 2007, the news of his death arrived, in the city of Ottawa, where he had lived. To commemorate that encounter of cultures and imaginations, the Elektrika Gallery will be filled with the reproductions of Alootook Ipellie's works and artefacts that remind of his stay in this environment. Also, a video interview will be shown, made in the production of Cultural Centre Pancevo. 

Among the whole Inuit population, drawer, illustrator and writer Alootook Ipellie was one of the most prominent artists of contemporary sensibility, belonging to perhaps the last generation of people who lived to see the transition from traditional, nomadic lifestyle in areas like Iquluit (former Frobisher Bay) at the far northeast of American continent, to moving into fixed settlements monitored by Canadian authorities. Ipellie started his career of a drawer and illustrator at the beginning of the 70s, after having moved to Ottawa, where he was an associate and editor of magazines Inuit Today and Inuit. Drawings of this artist beam simplicity and clarity of landscapes where he grew up; there is even a dose of humour, despite unhappy destiny of his people and culture that severely suffered losses in the encounter with Western civilization. In his works Ipellie connects out of time, primeval iconography and art of Inuit and a modern, ironic approach that comes from the influence of pop culture. 

Aleksandar Zograf