Renowned artist Alex Janvier will do signature piece for Edmonton arena project

EDMONTON – Internationally renowned artist Alex Janvier has been chosen to create a signature art piece for Edmonton’s new hockey arena project.

The city says Janvier will turn his painting called Iron Foot Place into a 150-square-meter tile mosaic to be inset in the floor of the Winter Garden.

The garden is being designed as a climate-controlled indoor public space adjacent to the new arena for the National Hockey League Oilers.

Mayor Don Iveson (EYE’-veh-son) says Janvier’s mosaic will be a way to honour the city’s place on Treaty Six territory.

Janvier says his painting incorporates images of land, sky and clear waters from the far-away mountains.

Janvier was born in 1935 and was sent to a residential school near St. Paul, Alta., at the age of eight.

He has said that the discovery and nurturing of his creative instinctwas a consolation during his time there.

He received formal training and graduated with honours from Calgary’s Alberta College of Art in 1960.

Janvier’s style is highly distinctive and involves an eloquent blend of abstract and representational images with bright, often symbolic colours.

“I believe that Mr. Janvier, a world-renowned, respected aboriginal artist, captures the spirit of the city, its history, and its people,” Paul Moulton of the Edmonton Arts Council said in a release Monday.