HIS LIFE’S WORK
Bob Boyer
Central Gallery
January 15 to March 12, 2011
In 2004 just before Bob Boyer’s death, Kamloops Art Gallery added one of his most significant works to its permanent collection. The Gallery is honoured that Boyer’s Just Another Indian Cowgirl in Iraq has been selected to be part of the celebrated national touring exhibition Bob Boyer: His Life’s Work.
A leading Aboriginal artist from Saskatchewan, Boyer was also an art historian, a curator, and an educator. His untimely passing was mourned around the world.
In the Boyer retrospective guest curator Lee-Ann Martin focuses on Boyer’s powerful blanket and fresco paintings. The exhibition pays tribute not only to his personal impact on the Aboriginal community but also to his contribution to the elevation of Aboriginal art that brought it a wider audience and greater understanding.
The exhibition tracks his career from 1968 to 2004 and includes 60 paintings in diverse media. Boyer’s work consists of highly representational portraits and landscapes painted in the late 1960s through to large-scale vibrant coloured abstracts of the 1970s that were influenced by the artistic traditions of Northern Plains Aboriginal people.
From 1983 to 1995 Boyer was best known for his highly acclaimed, politically-charged blanket paintings that combined elements of Northern Plains design with personal symbolism and contemporary references. During the last decade of his life he experimented with a variety of media, including fresco, and produced work that celebrated Indigenous experience, cosmology and spirituality throughout the world.
The exhibition is accompanied by a major publication and a Virtual Museum of Canada online exhibition athttp://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/BobBoyer/.
The exhibition Bob Boyer: His Life’s Work is organized by the Mackenzie Art Gallery in collaboration with the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The project is proudly presented by Casino Regina and has been made possible in part through a contribution from the Museums Assistance Program, Department of Canadian Heritage.
Generously sponsored by Radio NL
Installation view of Bob Boyer: His Life’s Work
Photo: Kamloops Art Gallery
