Alex Janvier

Lake Shore Life

Lake Shore Life exemplifies the late Dene artist Alex Janvier’s well-known, vivid painting style which fused Denesuline aesthetics with Euro-Western abstraction. Stretching towards all corners of the canvas, the tentacle-like lines in Lake Shore Life appear almost cartographic—perhaps a bird’s eye depiction of the Cold Lake in Alberta, Canada where Janvier grew up. However, the painting’s use of bold colors, automatic lines, and soft geometric shapes also arguably recalls the works of European modernists Wassily Kandinsky and Joan Miró. Janvier was introduced to their abstraction works during his studies at the University of Alberta in the 1960s. His fusion of Dene motifs and symbols with European abstract style pushed against the pressure to fully assimilate into a completely Euro-Western aesthetic or to conversely adhere to narrow definitions of Indigenous art.