The Art of Alex Janvier: His First Thirty Years, 1960-1990

Patricia Morley is professor emeritus of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University and the author of Margaret Laurence: The Long
Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Reproductions, many in full color, of the bold, symbolic, and narrative
paintings of Dene artist Alex Janvier make an impressive catalogue for
Janvier’s first solo exhibition in 15 years.

Two substantial essays by guest curator Lee-Ann Martin and guest
essayist Robert Houle celebrate the Janvier legacy. Houle writes of the
dual energies in his art: “From the land of the Dene, the strangers of
the western subarctic, Janvier has brought the ambiguity of immaterial
forces: light and shadow, fragility and strength, life and death,
destructive power and transformational forces.”

Martin praises Janvier’s distinctively modernist, abstract style and
his political activism. In his various roles as artist, educator, and
government consultant, Janvier has inspired a new generation of
contemporary Native artists, and is no longer alone in the struggle to
maintain Native culture and art.

The catalogue includes a selected bibliography, and a short statement
by the artist. His goals, like those of other Native artists, are
“[t]o stay, to grow, and [to] be counted.”