Alaskan Native Artist

Phillip John "Aarnaquq" Charette

Alaska Native Artist

Phillip John Charette "Aarnaquq" Prints

                  Yupikmask.com accepts these forms of payment. All artwork by Alaskan Native Artist Phillip John Charette is for sale on this online web site. Artwork is available through this online web site, at Native American Art Markets, through CD Baby, and through work he has available in his studio. His studio is located in beautiful  in Baker City which is located in  Eastern Oregon, 97814. My business phone number is  541.519.2635. 

Work at Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts, Pendleton, Oregon

Alaskan Native Artist Phillip John Charette (Aarnaquq) using a Traditional Yup'ik story knife drawing a story into ink for the mono print (story knives made by Marty Hinz & gifted to family members at fish camp family reunion near Bethel in 2005).

Traditionally, we drew stories in the sand using knives that were often carved from ivory. I wanted to carry on the tradition of drawing stories in a more contemporary way so I decided to draw stories on ink and print it.   Mono prints titled: "The Dance", were my first mono prints using this technique. I am hooked and look forward to getting back to do more story knife prints. I plan on doing more "Story Knife" prints in the very near future with a definite twist.

Alaskan Native Angalkuq  “Shaman or Medicine Man”

Quadtych Yup'ik Healing Ceremony

Limited Edition prints available

Project Description:

MEANING: This powerful four (4) print Quadtych tell a story of my great, great grandfather Aanaquq during an intense healing ceremony.  This set of prints represent four stages in a traditional Yup’ik healing ceremony as titled below. The images are mixed media images of the artist. They represent Aarnaquq, his great, great grandfather and namesake who was a well-respected healer in the lower Kuskokwim region.

Image 1 Title: Tangvagai - “He is watching them”	Image 2 Title: Caugai - “He is confronting them”
Image 3 Title: Callugai - “He is fighting them”	Image 4 Title: Pellugtaa - “He brought him through"

PROCESS:  This is a mixed media set with several steps.

Step 1 - Digital self portrait with artist looking into a mirror to get exact facial features. A black back drop was used to isolate light in facial features and macro zoom to contort the shape of the face.

Step 2 - Manipulation of image with Photoshop using two filters. The first filter was used to strip the color creating highlights. The second filter created topographic lines of the face representing the Nuna "land" over time going back to the time of my great, great, grandfather.

Step 3 - Print images on mylar and manipulate with exacto knife to let more light through and permanent marker to let less light through for next process of printing on printing photo plate.

Step 4 - Create secondary color plate from digital images to highlight face.

Step 5 - Shoot original image on a chemical photo printing plate and develop plate.

Step 6 - Shoot secondary color plate onto a chemical photo printing plate and develop.

Step 7- Print primary plate in black and white.

Step 8 - Print secondary plate onto black and white image.

Step 9 - Cut and trim each individual image to be adhered to large piece of paper.

Step 10 - Use special adhesive to glue all images onto white paper. Doing this brings out the colorless areas around all the eyes on the print giving it stronger impact. This give the appearance of piercing eyes looking at you.

PRICE: $3,000.00 Framed (Sold only as set)

Description: This single page triptych represents the dance of life. It was done using a traditional story knife. The story is told by a left handed person starting from right to left, inverting and continuing from left to right, inverting again and finishing from left to right. The symbol in the background represents life. Follow the traditional footstep symbols to read the story.

Limited Mono prints Available through Crow's Shadow http://www.crowsshadow.org/

Print recently curated into the Hallie Ford Museum in Salem, Oregon.

$800.00 each

Digital image by Alaskan Native Artist Phillip John Charette, "Aarnaquq"

"Myth of Creation"

A two plate print by Alaskan Native Artist

Phillip John "Aarnaquq" Charette

A photograph taken of me wearing a Nepcetat (sticks to the face) mask I made inspired this print. As I looked at the image of myself, I imagined what my great grandfather and namesake, Aarnaquq, would have been saying to a Yupiit audience while wearing such a mask. Since the Nepcetat mask is the most powerful of all Yup’ik masks (only worn by the most powerful shaman), I felt it would have been something extremely powerful and poignant. What then, could be more powerful then the story of our creation as told by the medicine man with the Creator’s blessings?

In the Yupiit worldview, the Raven is closely associated with Ellam Yua "the owner or spirit of the universe" and Ellam Yua stories. However, modern religious proselytization practices have dismissed and/or dispelled traditional Yup’ik cosmology, religious beliefs, and the practices of our ways of being - or has it? In this print, I offer a different perspective to the Creation story as perceived by Aarnaquq my great, great grandfather. This print represents - in spite of stringent religious and cultural assimilation policies and practices - the deep spiritual belief in traditional Yup’ik ways of knowing and being. These are beliefs that  many of my Yup’ik counterparts have struggled with, fought to suppress, and have run from for many years. As my aunt Naulalria told me, "Aarnaquq, you are through running and are so much at peace with yourself". When I let the Yup’ik ways of knowing and being flow through me, it centers me, puts things into balance, and brings me to be at peace.

In the print Creation Story, I started with the image of Raven. Raven, being close to Ellam Yua, is the channel between Ellam Yua and the spirit of the Shaman.  The Raven represents the only real tangible here and now being in this image. Within the body of the raven, near the heart, is the Yua "spirit of the thing" of the shaman (a mask within the mask). Printed over the raven is the spirit of the Shaman wearing a Nepcetat mask (second mask in this image). The print depicts the shaman, during a ceremony, in which the shaman connects with Ellam Yua (much like Michael Angelo’s "The Creation") through the raven. Ellam Yua is not depicted in this print, as the spirit of the universe is too powerful to portray. In Creation Story, the spirit of the shaman is receiving permission from Ellam Yua to tell the story of creation.

All images on the website are the property of Phillip John Charette "Aarnaquq" and are not to be reproduced or used without the permission of the artist.