Erin Gingrich
(She, Her, Hers)
ekgingrich@alaska.edu
https://ggaadimitsivalu.com/
Education
- M.F.A., Studio Arts, Institute of American Indian Arts
- B.F.A., Art; Native Art, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Biography
Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich (Koyukon Dené/Iñupiaq) is a carver and interdisciplinary artist living, working, and subsisting in 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, photography, film, installation, poetics, and design, Ivalu creates representations of the revered wild relatives and homelands that have provided for her family and ancestors since time immemorial. Continuing the viewpoint of seeing these resources and places that are 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 is a 2025 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellow and her work has been exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach, The Armory Show NY, The Contemporary Native Art Biennial, The Anchorage Museum and others.
Ivalu’s work has been supported by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Native arts and Culture Foundation, The Nia Tero Foundation, and her work is in collections at The RISD Museum, The Gochman family Collection, IAIA MoCNA, The Anchorage Museum. Ivalu completed her MFA in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts in May of 2024.
Teaching Responsibilities
- Beginning Sculpture
- Intermediate Sculpture
- Advanced Sculpture
Exhibitions
Solo
2023 Kaviqsaaq Qivliaq-taaq Siññaktut (Red Silver Dreams), Alaska Pacific University Gallery, Anchorage, AK
2022 Allaŋŋaq, Bunnell Street Arts Center, Homer, AK
2018 Gifts From Last Year (Ukiutksrirrutimin), Alaska Pacific University Gallery, Anchorage, AK
2014 Given & Gathered, University of Alaska Fairbanks Fine Arts Gallery, Fairbanks, AK
Group
2020 Our Voices: An Indigenous Art Ceremony, Alaska Pacific University Gallery, Anchorage, AK
2019 Qaspeq / Kuspuk / Atikluk, Bunnell Street Arts Center, Homer, AK, yəhaw̓ , King Street Station, Seattle, WA
2018 Alaska Native PLACE, Cyrano’s Theater Gallery, Anchorage, AK, All-Alaska Biennial, Anchorage Museum, Anchorage & Juneau, AK
2017 Voices of Change, Sitka National Historic Park, Sitka, AK 2011, MONOPRINTS, International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage AK
Grants & Awards
2025 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship
2024 The Metropolitan Museum of Art & The CIRI Foundation: The American Wing CollectionsResearch Residency
2023 Museums Alaska: Access to Alaska Native Collections Grant Award 2023 SITE Santa Fe SITE Scholar
2021 Nia Tero Foundation Pacific Northwest Art Fellowship Award 2021 Native Arts & Cultures Foundation LIFT – Early Career Support for Native Artists Award
2019 Alaska Arts & Culture Foundation/Alaska State Council on the Arts Connie Boochever Fellowship
2017 Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Award; Project Award 2016 Anchorage Museum Polar Lab: Collective Museum Research 2014 The Bill Holm Center Artist research Grant at the Burke Museum
Residencies
2022 Anchorage Museum Virtual Artist Residency, Anchorage, AK 2017 Sheldon Jackson Museum Artist Residency, Sitka, AK
2016 Institute of American Indian Arts Artist-in-Residence (A-i-R) , Santa Fe, NM
