Hometown Fans, 1981

West End Gallery, Edmonton Petley Jones Gallery, Vancouver Private Collection, Toronto

Murray Whyte, ‘Alex Janvier at the McMichael: the art of defiance’, “The Toronto Star” [online], 15 October 2017

Born on the Le Goff Reserve of the Cold Lake First Nations in northern Alberta, Alex Janvier is now recognized as one of Canada’s most acclaimed contemporary painters. The beadwork and birch bark basketry of his mother and other relatives formed an early influence on the artist’s work. Janvier was wrested from his family and sent to the Blue Quill Residential Indian School in Northern Alberta, where he sought solace in art-making. In the 1950s, he received formal art training at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. There he studied under Marion Nicoll and absorbed the influence of European modernists including Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Janvier developed a highly individualistic style deeply infused with the symbolism of his Dene heritage and culture. His paintings often feature titles which address colonialism, identity and references to the land. Hometown Fans exemplifies the artist’s idiosyncratic visual style. Carefully rendered wisps of multi-coloured forms drift like tendrils of smoke across the picture plane. A major retrospective of Janvier’s work was held at the National Gallery of Canada from November 2016 to April 2017.