Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich is a Koyukon Dené and Iñupiaq Carver, Interdisciplinary Artist and scholar living, working, and subsisting in the subarctic climate of South-Central Alaska. Honoring her arctic and subarctic ancestral homelands, Ivalu's work represents what has tied her and her ancestors to the North. Through carved, painted, and beaded sculpture and mask forms and using other inter-weaving practices, Ivalu creates representations of the revered wild relatives that have provided for her, her family, and her ancestors for generations. Continuing the viewpoint of seeing these resources from homelands as gifts given to the worthy who reciprocate respect and care for the land and wild relatives that share it. Connection to the realities of subsistence lifeways and arctic survival is vital to Ivalu’s work that mirrors what keeps us fed, warm and present in the circumpolar north. With ancestral ties to the communities of Nulato, Nome and Utqiagvik; Ivalu currently resides between the Denaʼina Homelands of Anchorage and Cohoe, Alaska.
Ivalu has been selected for the 2025 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship and her work has been exhibited at Art Toronto 24’, Art Basel Miami Beach 22’, The Armory Show NY 22’, The Contemporary Native Art Biennial (BACA) 22’, SITE Santa Fe, The Anchorage Museum and others. Her work has been supported by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The CIRI Foundation, Inuit Futures, the Inuit Art Foundation, Museums Alaska, The Nia Tero Foundation, Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, The Alaska Arts & Culture Foundation/ Alaska State Council on the Arts and The Rasmuson Foundation. Ivalu’s work is in collections at The Rhode Island School of Design Museum, The Gochman family Collection, The Institute of American Indian Arts - Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, The Anchorage Museum and many personal collections.