Bob boyer biography

The Carousel of Life - 1996 - by Bob Boyer

Bob Boyer

Bob Boyer was born in 1948 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. He attended the University of Saskatchewan's Regina Campus and earned a Bachelor of Education (Art) degree in 1971. He then worked in a number of education, art, and community positions, including as an art and drama instructor in Prince Albert (1971-1973), a community program officer and curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina (1973-1975), and a personnel officer at the Department of Northern Development and Planning in La Ronge.

Boyer became an Assistant Professor at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (now First Nations University of Canada) in Regina in 1978, and two years later became the Head of the Department of Indian Fine Arts. He served in this position until 1998, and then again beginning in 2004. Boyer continued to teach art and art history there until his death in 2004.

Boyer began his career painting portraits and landscapes, but he is perhaps most well known for his painted blankets. He was inspired to attempt this art form after a trip to China and Japan in 1983, during which he saw cloth banners conveying political messages. Boyer used his blankets to paint images that comment on Native history in Canada, addressing colonialism, environmental destruction, and Native culture. Boyer referred to these pieces—which incorporate geometric forms from Plains First Nations beadwork—as “blanket statements.” As a Métis artist, Boyer's interest in these issues went beyond his own art, as he advocated for increased recognition of Aboriginal artists, including through the Society of Canadian Artists of Native Ancestry (SCANA). He also highlighted Aboriginal artists in his role as a curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina) with exhibitions such as “100 Years of Saskatchewan Indian Art, 1830-1930,” and “Kiskayetum: Allen Sapp, a Retrospective.”

Boyer's ow

Bob Boyer: His Life’s Work is the first major retrospective of Bob Boyer, a nationally and internationally renowned artist, art historian, curator and educator. Boyer’s influence is far-reaching and interwoven among the communities of art, education and culture. This touring exhibition and the accompanying publication are a celebration of the art, life and critical contribution of this influential artist. Sixty paintings in diverse media trace his career from 1968 to 2004.

CLICK HERE FOR A VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION

Although he lived his entire life in Saskatchewan, Boyer’s work was inspired by his extensive travels throughout North and Central America, Asia, Europe and Scandinavia. Boyer began his artistic career in the late 1960s, painting highly representational portraits and landscapes. By the late 1970s, he experimented with large-scale abstract oil paintings, using vibrant colours informed by personal experiences and the artistic traditions of Northern Plains Aboriginal people. While Boyer worked in a variety of media throughout his career, he is perhaps best known for his acclaimed series of blanket paintings completed between 1983 and 1995. Using flannel blankets as the painting surface, Boyer combined elements of historical Northern Plains design with personal symbology and contemporary references. For the most part, these “blanket statements” are politically-charged depictions of the devastating impact of colonial imperatives upon Aboriginal philosophies, land, religions and cultures. During the last decade of his life, Boyer experimented with a variety of media, including fresco, and produced work which celebrated Indigenous experience, cosmology and spirituality throughout the world. While his untimely death in August 2004 leaves an enormous sense of the incompleteness of an abundant life, Bob Boyer’s art leaves a legacy of a life’s work that is fully complete.

Early Influences

Boyer gradua

Canadian artist (1948-2004)

Robert BoyerRCA (July 20, 1948 – August 30, 2004) was a Canadian visual artist and university professor of aboriginal heritage. He was a MétisCree artist known for his politically charged abstract paintings.

Life and work

Boyer grew up in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and earned a BEd from the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan in 1971. He joined the Saskatchewan arts community in 1973 and worked on community programming at the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina until the mid-1970s. He was then a professor of Indian Fine Arts at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College ("SIFC") (now First Nations University of Canada), a federated college of the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus, later the University of Regina, until 1997. During his time at the SIFC, Boyer acted as the Head of the Department of Indian Fine Arts.

Boyer's early paintings use material such as acrylics, paper, and canvas. The earliest paintings are realistic, but he soon embarked on an effort to incorporate an abstract style in his work. One of the earliest results of this is "Horses Can Fly, Too," a representation of a horse-figure streaking through the sky. Boyer is well known for his large-scale geometric paintings on felt blankets that he produced primarily in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This began after a trip to China and Japan. He said, "There were paintings on silk or cloth and gradually this whole thing about art not having to be made on stretched canvas really began to get through to me." Boyer used oil paints applied thickly, using rough brush strokes in many of these works. The geometric designs on the blanket paintings come from the tradition motifs of Siouan and

Bob Boyer (1948-2004) – Biography

Although he lived his entire life in Saskatchewan, Bob Boyer’s work was inspired by his extensive travels throughout North and Central America, Asia, Europe and Scandinavia. Boyer began his artistic career in the late 1960s, painting highly representational portraits and landscapes. By the late 1970s, he experimented with large-scale abstract oil paintings, using vibrant colours informed by personal experiences and the artistic traditions of Northern Plains Aboriginal people.

Boyer graduated from the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan with a Bachelor of Education (Art) in 1971. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of great change and intense activity within the Art Department at the University. Studio courses fostered creative experimentation, and encouragement from professors, such as Ted Godwin, led Boyer to develop his own personal aesthetic approach.

Following his graduation from the University, Boyer lived and worked for several years in northern Saskatchewan. His time in northern Saskatchewan was pivotal to the future direction of his art. He traveled extensively to many remote communities, frequently by floatplane, and learned to tan hides and build birch-bark canoes. These early journeys throughout northern Saskatchewan began a process of travel and exposure to different approaches in art, materials, and landscapes which would become central to Boyer’s formation as an artist. In this environment, where forests obstruct the horizon line, his stylistic approach changed dramatically, and his paintings became less representational and more complex in their ideas.

Boyer’s knowledge of the design, philosophy, and spiritual meanings of traditional First Nations art increased enormously after he joined Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (SIFC) in 1978. His paintings from this time reflect an evolving conceptual transition that propelled him completely into abstraction. By the mid-1