2007 # 01 Tigoriannguaruk! Tag suluk med hjem! Your personal copy!

freedom. Because of my father’s work
I also got to travel around the country.
For example, I went to Uummannaq
when they excavated the mummies
and I went on a sled ride. I took part
in an archaeological excavation in
Ameralik Fjord where I learned all
about living in tents, tells Ina. Later in
her youth she worked for several years
in a row as an expedition cook, once
for a mineral prospecting company
looking for gold in East Greenland.
– Every morning after the drilling team
had been picked up by helicopter and
flown out to the rig I was left behind
between the steep, naked mountains
and the huge glaciers with 400 km to
the nearest town. The strange thing
was, that it made me feel free and
intoxicated: that I had the courage to
be independent of others. This feeling is
a bit like the kick I get out of painting.
Air Greenland inflight magazine 53
The decision matures
– As an artist you have to keep your
cool. There are always decisions to be
made. Are you doing the right thing?
You can be scared to death. And then
you just sell a picture. You have to
bear that it’s hard to get through to
the other side. For many years I wondered
what I was going to be when I
grew up. I’m past that now. Now, I
know what I want, says Ina. She attended
the Academy of Architects when
she was younger and she painted
on the side, but in the end the two
careers were not compatible.
– I kept getting offers in connection
with my artistic work. In the end I
made a choice, but I was very scared
because I had chosen an uncertain
economic future, says Ina. Occasionally
she has needed the skills she learned
at architect school. Most recently as a
member of a work group for the
selection of the site for the coming
Greenland Art Museum in Nuuk that
is backed by artists like Aka Høegh
and Bodil Kaalund.
At the moment she is planning an
exhibition with her artist colleague and
countryman Boletta Silis Høegh who,
like Ina, works with experimental
painting. Ina has had exhibitions in all
the Nordic countries and welcomes
inspiration from other artist colleagues.
But it isn’t the first work of art she
falls for.
– I often go to museums. But 90 per
cent doesn’t do anything for me. Then
suddenly there is something that catches
my eye. It excites me. I get a wild
desire to paint.