Biographies
Anabelle Kienle Poňka
Senior Curator, European, American and Asian Art
Born in Germany, Dr. Anabelle Kienle Poňka studied art history, cultural studies and sociology in Münster, Germany, and Vienna, Austria. She joined the department of European and American art in 2006 overseeing the National Gallery’s collection of painting, sculpture and decorative art from 1820–1991. Previously, Kienle Poňka held positions at the Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri, where she conducted research into its renowned German Expressionist collection and spearheaded the museum’s Nazi-era provenance research project. In 2008, she published a book on German artist Max Beckmann’s American years. Recent exhibition projects have included Monet: A Bridge to Modernity (2015) and Van Gogh: Up Close (2012), which she co-curated.
Jocelyn Piirainen
Associate Curator, Inuit Art
Jocelyn Piirainen is an urban Inuk, originally from Ikaluktutiak (Cambridge Bay), Nunavut. She has been living and working on Treaty 1 territory since 2019, when she was appointed Associate Curator of Inuit Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and Qaumajuq.
Piirainen’s previous curatorial work includes recent collaborations with the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal on the exhibition ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ/Ruovttu Guvlui/Towards Home, and with the Asinabka Film and Media Arts Festival on NEON NDN: Indigenous Pop Art at SAW Gallery in Ottawa. In addition, she was a co-curator of the landmark exhibition Tunirrusiangit: Kenojuak Ashevak and Tim Pitsiulak, presented at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2018.
Piirainen holds a BA from Carleton University with a major in Film Studies; she also attended Algonquin College for Multimedia Development. Her writing has been featured in Canadian Art, Canadian Geographic and the Inuit Art Quarterly.
