Ingunn Utsi

Ingunn Utsi (born 1948) is a Norwegian Sámi sculptor, painter and book illustrator from Repvågstranda, in the Nordkapp Municipality of northern Norway. Her work matters for its contribution to contemporary Sámi culture, and in 2019 she was elected an honorary member of the Sámi Cultural Association (Samisk Kunstnerforbund, SDS).

She grew up in a home where her parents spoke only Sámi, as they felt it important that she use her mother tongue rather than Norwegian. She was possibly the last child in the area to have Sámi as her first language, since those born after 1953 were raised in Norwegian. She attended Norwegian-speaking boarding schools in Repvågstranda, Sarnes, Honningsvåg and Alta, and later studied Sámi at the University of Oslo, though the standard Sámi she learned differed considerably from the one she spoke at home.

She trained at the Trondheim Art School, where she began with drawing and soon specialised in sculpture. She works mainly with wood, combined with plastic, stone and metal. She describes working directly with wood, almost never sketching first, letting the material guide her and treating its surprises and demands as part of the finished piece.

Her work has been widely exhibited and is held in the permanent collections of several museums. One of her best-known works is Gudni II (Homage II), a 2016 sculpture carved into the trunk of a pine tree in the Art Park of Ii, Finland. In October 2008 the Alta Cultural Association hosted a solo exhibition of her drawings on the idea of "timeless time" and a floor installation combining metal and plexiglass.