Rick Rivet and Bob Boyer: Journeymen of Soul

Born in 1949 in Aklavik Northwest Territories, Rick Rivet’s formative years were spent on the Mackenzie River Delta, in a diverse community consisting of Inuit, Métis, and Europeans.    Following high school years spent in Inuvik, Rivet travelled to Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba to embark on post-secondary and doctoral studies.  Rivet’s recent work highlights his exploration of Shamanistic beliefs, captured in dream-like canvases of surreal imagery and rich, expressionist colour.  The mix of Indigenous imagery and abstraction creates an otherworldly aesthetic that suggest an escape into the unknown. With hints of past lives, Rivet’s art inspires us to dream and connects on a deep, spiritual level.  For Rivet, art is a meditative process, one that mirrors the shaman’s function as mediator between the spirit world and the human world.

Rick Rivet’s work is exhibited nationally and internationally, and he is honored to have received many awards over the years including the Eiteljorg Fellowship from the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, IN and the Andy Warhol Foundation Fellowship from the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ.  A solo exhibition, Rick Rivet Paintings 2000-2005 was mounted by the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatchewan and toured Canada into 2008.  Rivet’s work is represented in such collections as The Art Gallery of Ontario, The Canadian Museum of History, The Thunder Bay Art Gallery, The Glenbow Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and The Heard Museum, AZ.

An artist, curator, historian and educator,  Bob Boyer’s influence and passion was far-reaching and touched many.  Although he lived his entire life in Saskatchewan, Bob was a world traveler, willing to follow an architectural lead all the way to Northern Europe or enjoy the joyful rambling of the Arizona powwow trail.  Boyer’s extensive travels as a teacher to remote Northern Saskatchewan communities exposed him to different approaches in materials and landscapes. His ongoing conversations with Elders and participation in powwows and ceremonies would continue to inspire his artistic direction. In the 1980s Boyer proved to be quite the firebrand – the many powwow blankets he had received as gifts over the years triggered a career-defining series of sobering, political charged works that alluded to the devastating effect of colonialists on Indigenous communities. 

By the mid-1990s, Boyer’s work had become looser and more introspective, filled with whimsical images such as birds, fish, and angels, revealing a fusion of spiritual philosophies and symbolism learned from Indigenous peoples throughout the world.   A career that took Boyer from the northernmost reaches of Saskatchewan to a remote and isolated mosque in the Gobi Desert had produced an artist of great generosity, empathy and power – both an educator and a lifelong learner, happiest when sharing the breadth of his experience and work with others.  In 2008, the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina, SK mounted a national touring retrospective of Boyer’s work entitled Bob Boyer:  His Life’s Work – curated by Lee-Ann Martin, the exhibition travelled to the Canadian Museum of History, QC, Kamloops Art Gallery, BC, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, ON and the Winnipeg Art Gallery, MB.