Alan Syliboy

Young Blue Female Moose (2021)

Oil on canvas

Alan Syliboy grew up believing that native art was generic. “As a youth, I found painting difficult and painful, because I was unsure of my identity.” But his confidence grew in 1972 when he studied privately with Shirley Bear. He then attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where 25 years later, he was invited to sit on the Board of Governors. Syliboy looks to the indigenous Mi’kmaq petroglyph tradition for inspiration and developed his own artistic vocabulary out of those forms. His popularization of these symbolic icons has conferred on them a mainstream legitimacy that restores community pride in its Mi’kmaq heritage.

“I was told a story by a medicine man that had a horse which was old and dying.  When the horse passed it had a blue glow around it.  I felt that this blue glow represented the spirit leaving the body. This Young Blue Female Moose is nearing death, and its spirit is beginning the journey back to the creator.”