Soul Symphony: The Art of Alex Janvier will be presented as a 360 Film Screening in Cold Lake, Alberta from Aug. 1 to 10 at the Cold Lake Energy Centre, allowing audiences to experience Janvier’s artwork through immersive projection technology in Janvier’s home region. By Chevi Rabbit, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter (ANNews) – For generations of artists, collectors, and community members, the work of world-renowned Denesuline and Saulteaux artist Alex Janvier has represented more than colour and design. His paintings carry stories of identity, resilience, land, memory, and the way he experienced the world around him. Now, through Soul Symphony: The Art of Alex Janvier, audiences are invited to experience his artwork in an entirely new way, not simply by viewing his paintings, but by stepping inside his artistic vision through immersive technology. The 360-degree film experience combines large-scale projection, sound, storytelling, and digital innovation to bring Janvier’s artwork beyond the traditional gallery setting. For his daughter, Jill Janvier, the project represents a continuation of her father’s lifelong impact. “I feel very honoured to be one of his representatives,” Jill said. “I started working for my parents full-time at their gallery in 2012, and from that time I really got to be familiar with their clients and the general art market, and I got to be familiar with a vast array of Alex Janvier original paintings.” Through her work with Janvier Gallery, Jill has gained a unique perspective on the scale of her father’s artistic contribution. The gallery database contains more than 6,000 entries connected to Alex Janvier’s original works, including paintings, murals, and sketches. But for Jill, her father’s legacy cannot be measured only by numbers. “I feel like it’s open to one’s story, what they interpret as Janvier,” she said. “That story that they have comes from their experience, from their time visiting him, or from seeing the art and their connection to that piece of art.” Whether someone encounters his work in a museum, public installation, gallery, or private home, Jill said each person develops their own relationship with his art. “We all get to see it somewhere some days, and that’s part of what we experience and treasure, I think, anywhere in Canada, because it’s everywhere.” A New Way to Experience Art The idea behind Soul Symphony began when director Bernard Duguay encountered Alex Janvier’s work and immediately felt a connection. “I really fell in love with his work during the exhibition in Ottawa,” Duguay said. “And I wrote to him, asked him if he would like to do something with me as a visual artist. And he said yes.” That conversation eventually led to a collaboration between Duguay, Lucion, Janvier Gallery, and the Janvier family. Together, they developed a proposal for the Canada Council for the Arts to create an immersive dome film celebrating Janvier’s life and artwork. “We wrote for a grant for the Canada Council to produce a dome film, an experiential dome film, and then the grant was granted,” Duguay said. “So then we had the funds to produce a film about the works of Alex Janvier.” Duguay said one of the biggest challenges was finding the right way to tell the story of an artist whose life and career were so expansive. “At first I didn’t quite know how to talk about the whole thing because it’s a huge family, a big family, the history of Alex Janvier,” he said. The creative team ultimately focused on the foundation of everything, the artwork itself. The production team filmed Janvier while he worked, capturing his creative process and recording interviews that became central to the film. “We filmed him as he was painting, and we did many, many interviews with Mr. Janvier,” Duguay said. “These interviews were used to feature his art, the beginnings of his artwork, how he got to be so good, and then how it changed his life. That was basically the core of the story.” Technology That Serves the Art While technology is central to Soul Symphony, Duguay said the goal was never to overpower Janvier’s original artwork. The team wanted audiences to feel immersed in the paintings while maintaining respect for the artist’s original compositions and intentions. “We didn’t want to desecrate the picture and make it a 3D rendition of his paintings and fly inside this,” Duguay said. “This would have been a technological whiz, but not interesting.” Instead, the team chose a more subtle approach. “We kept it flat,” he said. “His drawing is his drawing, and just a camera sort of floating around the canvas.” That decision allows viewers to experience details within Janvier’s paintings that may not be visible from a traditional viewing distance. “Then you get a really close-up view of the details, and somehow, hopefully, you get past the canvas and behind.” For Duguay, the technology is not the focus. It is the tool that allows audiences to connect more deeply with the artist. “The fact that it’s immersive, the dome film, is very different,” he said. “I felt I wanted to get inside them, to go, to get immersed in them.” Redefining Indigenous Art in Canada Alex Janvier’s career represented a major shift in how Indigenous artists were recognized in Canada. Beginning his career in the 1960s and pursuing art full-time in the 1970s, Janvier was part of a generation of Indigenous artists who challenged stereotypes and fought for recognition as contemporary artists. Jill said artists such as Janvier, Daphne Odjig, and Norval Morrisseau faced barriers when trying to have their work accepted by mainstream art institutions. “They could create art, but they had no venue,” Jill said. “They could approach a gallery, a museum, or some kind of professional art place, and they would get closed doors.” The artists wanted their work recognized beyond narrow expectations of Indigenous art,” Jill said. “They wanted to elevate it to ‘We are modern artists.’ Whether Indigenous or not, they just wanted to be artists.” She emphasized that the change came through collective action. “It wasn’t because of him,” Jill said. “He was one of a few working together on it. It’s because of all of them who did it together that they opened the doors for themselves.” A Legacy of Seeing Differently For Jill, one of the greatest lessons her father shared was his unique ability to see beauty and meaning in the world around him. “He really showed me a sense of seeing,” she said. She recalled her father asking if she could see “42 shades of green.” “I’m like, ‘I don’t see that, Dad,’” Jill said. “I might have seen four in front of me.” She also remembered him pointing out purple tones in the mountains. “To me they’re great tones with whites and greens and browns,” she said. “So I was like, ‘Where’s that purple?’ But he saw that.” Duguay experienced a similar sense of wonder while learning about Janvier’s creative process. “We found out that this was inspired from a tree stump,” he said. “It’s interesting to see how he saw a tree stump. How the reality is his reality very, very different from us.” Carrying Forward the Spirit of Alex Janvier Both Jill and Duguay hope audiences leave Soul Symphony with a deeper connection to Alex Janvier’s way of seeing the world. “My biggest hope is that there’s a lot of appreciation and a sense of inspiration that comes from the film,” Jill said. “He led a life that’s an example to follow. He led a life of triumph and perseverance and truth to his own story.” Duguay hopes audiences experience the heart behind the artwork. “It’s full of love,” he said. “The soul of Alex Janvier is so rich.” “The way he sees life is unique, I think,” he said. “We’re really blessed to have had an elder so close to us like this.” He believes Janvier’s artwork carries a feeling that technology alone cannot create. “We can all draw beautiful things, but he felt it from the heart, and I think it says heart on the painting,” Duguay said. “So it’s very full of life and full of intent.” Bringing the Experience to Communities Soul Symphony: The Art of Alex Janvier will be presented as a 360 Film Screening in Cold Lake, Alberta from Aug. 1 to 10 at the Cold Lake Energy Centre, allowing audiences to experience Janvier’s artwork through immersive projection technology in Janvier’s home region. Jill said the response from supporters has been meaningful. “I’m very grateful for all my supporters and contributors back home who have helped bring it to our community,” she said. “That’s been an important part of everything.” For Jill, the greatest success of Soul Symphony is that every viewer can create their own relationship with the artwork. “The film and the art and the words that go with it, that is something for [each] person to experience and interpret,” she said.
Stepping Into the Vision of Alex Janvier: How Soul Symphony Brings a Master Artists Legacy to Life
