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Item Name: Painting
Title: Snow on Lake Chiniki
Maker: Bob Boyer
Year: 1988
Country: Canadian
Materials: acrylic over watercolour on acid press paper
Measurements: overall: 54.6 cm x 70 cm
ID Number: PC2008.1
Legal Status: PERMANENT COLLECTION


Extended Label Info: Representative of his mature style, the pastel colours and geometric shapes in this abstract painting by Bob Boyer are based on his research into North American Indigenous designs. At the start of his painting career, Boyer painted portraits and landscapes. During the late 1970s, he began to experiment with large-scale abstract oil paintings, and his artistic breakthrough came with his acclaimed series Blanket Statements (1983 – 1995). Inspired by the political banners he saw in China and Japan in 1983, Boyer used Hudson Bay Company fur trade style flannel and wool blankets for a series of geometric paintings based on Northern Plains First Nations beadwork. The series uses the materials of the fur-trade to address the injustice, environmental destruction and colonialism in Canadian history. During the last decade of his life, Boyer worked with a variety of media and produced work which celebrated Indigenous experience, cosmology and spirituality. Bob Boyer (1948 – 2004) was an internationally renowned Métis artist, art historian, curator and educator. Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Boyer attended the University of Saskatchewan's Regina Campus (now the University of Regina) and earned a Bachelor of Education (Art) in 1971. In 1978, Boyer began teaching at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (now First Nations University of Canada). A member of Society of Canadian Artists of Native Ancestry (SCANA), Boyer was a tireless advocate for increased recognition of Aboriginal artists. Boyer's work has been widely exhibited and is held in national collections such as the Canada Council Art Bank (Ottawa), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Saskatchewan Arts Board, Winnipeg Art Gallery, University of Saskatchewan, MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina), Mendel Art Gallery (Saskatoon), Department of Indian and Northern Affairs (Ottawa), and the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto.