THE KING OF COLD LAKE - Alex Janvier

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Alex Janvier, "Untitled," acrylic on paper, 13" in diameter.

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"Artist Alex Janvier"

Artist Alex Janvier.

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"Untitled"

Alex Janvier, "Untitled," acrylic on paper, 13" in diameter.

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THE KING OF COLD LAKE - ALEX JANVIER

Acclaimed painter Alex Janvier headlines the Art Gallery of Calgary's fall season

By Amber Bowerman

As part of the 2007 Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art (co-presented by the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton and Banff's Walter Phillips Gallery), the Art Gallery of Calgary hosts an exhibition of the work of Cold Lake, Alberta-based painter Alex Janvier through January 5. Under the theme Living Utopia and Disaster, the works featured in the Biennial are billed as "discrete reminders that hopes are often matched with impending catastrophe, actions with adversity, and that Utopia is mostly built on disasters." Janvier is living proof of that premise.

Of Dene Suline and Saulteaux descent, Janvier's 72 years have been marked by tragedy and triumph, struggle and success. Like many of Canada's Aboriginal people, as a child he was sent by the government to a residential school. But it was at the Blue Quills School that Janvier first began painting, and today he's an internationally recognized painter who this year was named to the Order of Canada.

The 2007 Biennial will include a special exhibition celebrating Janvier's esteemed career. The pieces in the AGC show will include a survey of past works, as well as new paintings, which address the decimation of traditional hunting and fishing grounds.

Galleries West: At age eight you were uprooted from your family and sent to the Blue Quills Residential School. What was that experience like?

Alex Janvier: It's not a favourite subject of mine. We were just uprooted from our parents. The RCMP were on hand and told them if they didn't let us go that there would be trouble. We lost out and so did our parents. It wasn't an ideal situation there at all.

GW: Do emotions from that period of your life emerge in your work?

AJ: I wouldn't want to blame bad paintings on that [laughing]. But it affects me even to this day, although I've gone back to the place of hurt. I went back to that school. It's something I don't want to live inside of me anymore, but it will never be forgotten.

GW: When you studied at the Alberta College of Art and Design there were no other Native students in your classes. What was that like?

AJ: It was lonely. But I was very good at what I was doing and so I became quite preoccupied with my studies. In fact, I had taken serious tutoring by Carl Oldenburg from the art department at the University of Alberta. He tutored me from the time I was about 14 up to around 18. So I knew more about art and design, the things that Europeans normally know close at hand - to go to art school was just a formality. I was already painting.

GW: Who or what influenced you in those early days?

AJ: Well, Carl Oldenburg. The other person would be the head priest at the residential school, Father Roland. He was a Parisian educated man, a French priest who came to Canada, and he was the principal at the school. He knew a lot about art. He understood what I was doing.

GW: Is your art rooted in particular cultural traditions?

AJ: It's an absolute Janvier cultural intrusion into the art world [laughing]. I made my own trail. That's how I got here. I created something different.

GW: After studying in Calgary and teaching in Edmonton you returned to Cold Lake. Is that region of Alberta an inspiration to you?

AJ: Oh yeah. There's a beautiful lake here. It's at the beginning of the Boreal Forest, what used to be the beginning of the Great Plains. Today it's not quite the same, but the thing that's really special here is the large lake. It's really a wonderful thing to have."