Advanced Search

Sylvain Voyer

Sylvain Voyer


Sylvain Voyer attended the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, where he majored in painting and minored in printmaking. He lived and worked in Montreal and New York during the 1960s, but returned to Alberta, where in the 1970s, he turned full time to landscape painting. He has taught painting at the Edmonton Art Gallery and the University of Alberta's Department of Extension.

Voyer's paintings deal with space and the illusion of space. His hyper-realistic landscapes capture the intensity of Alberta's blue skies and radiating yellow canola fields in a distinct style that can immediately be identified as "Sylvain Voyer." He has been called the master of light and sky.

Although he is now best known for his rural landscapes, (especially the radiant gold aspens in fall and bright yellow canola fields in summer), he made significant national contributions to the visual arts as an experimental artist in his early career, co-founded of Edmonton's first artist-run gallery, instigated the province's art collection and was a founding member and first national president of the Canadian Artists Representation (CARFAC), 1971-1976.

Voyer's work is in the National Gallery of Canada, the Canada Council Art Bank, and numerous corporate collections. He was voted one of Alberta's top ten "artists of the century" by an independent panel of art historians and artists from across the province. Although much of his artwork is acrylic landscape painting, Voyer has also created impressive printmaking and sculptural work.