"This is really a Canadian story"

 

Alex Janvier in 2022

Three years ago, I wrote about the impact of seeing a 2017 retrospective of the art of Alex Janvier, who lived in Cold Lake, Alberta, and descended from the Dene Suline and the Saulteaux peoples. 

Janvier was one of the great artists, indigenous or Canadian.  He has just died, at the age of 89.  

This video, made two years ago, captures his gentle, but pointed truths.  It also shows a tiny fraction of his art, which is beautiful, but trust me, if you're standing in the same room as his paintings, it's like being overcome.  They are that amazing.

Fly fly away

Fly Fly Fly - Alex Janvier (1981)

A couple of days ago, we had Orange Shirt Day in Canada, also known as Truth and Reconciliation Day. 

This year was the first time that September 30th was declared a federal holiday. 

On a day that was proving rather more complicated than I'd hoped - please don't ask why - I hurried through the streets of Victoria, passing all sorts of people clad in the same orange shirt being sported by the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter at home. For myself, I was wearing my favourite cloisonné "Haida Fin" earrings, my Leah Dorion "Breath of Life" facemask, and I carried my Norval Morriseau umbrella. I figured that would have to do.

Speaking of artists, the last big exhibit I saw at the National Gallery of Canada before we left Hades covered the life's work of Alex Janvier.  I was somewhat familiar with the earlier decades of his work, because, years ago,  I helped a friend tidy the phrasing of his Master's thesis on Janvier; his research had included traveling to Cold Lake, Alberta to interview the artist, who was known, but not yet famous.

What I was not prepared for was the very scale of Janvier's development over six or seven decades.  I moved from gallery to gallery, almost having to scoop my jaw from the floor.  Each room brought new styles and experiments in exploding, curling, spiralling gatherings of brilliant colour.

Except for one small room to the side.  Displayed within were the works of the young Janvier at the Blue Quills Residential School.  Outside was expansion, exuberance.  In this small display room, I felt crushed and suffocated.  I couldn't stay long; I felt the walls closing in.

(Ironically enough, apparently it was the principal at Blue Quills that recognised his talent, and steered him towards art school.)

I continued on the journey through the exhibit.  Each passage through a doorway confronted me with newness and daring.  By the end, I was close to tears.

It would be the height of arrogance for me to say I understand what the Indigenous children went through, torn from their families, forced into schools where they were stripped of what they were, not cared for, and often abused.  However, that little dark side gallery within the magnificent showcase of one artist's life's work (which still continues) gave me a glimpse, and some idea of the horror.