Artist

Kiyooka, Roy

Title

Fontainebleau Dream Machine (1)

Technique

serigraph

Date

1977

Dimensions

58.0cm height x 43.0cm width

Type

print

Accession Number

2013.10.1

Collection

Permanent Collection

Gift of Bill Jeffries and Nora Kelly

One of the first Japanese Canadian artists to achieve prominence on a national and international scale, Roy Kiyooka began his art practice as a painter, later turned his focus to poetry and photography, and engaged in a variety of trans-disciplinary, experimental, and community-building work in the Canadian arts scene. A Nisei, Kiyooka was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1926, and grew up mostly in Calgary, spending 1942-1946 in rural Opal, Alberta. He began his art studies in 1946, going on to create mostly large-scale, abstract paintings. He wrote his first book of poetry, Kyoto Airs, in 1963, inspired by a visit to Japan. He continued to write poetry, publishing collections mostly through Coach House Press and self-publishing a number of home-printed chapbooks to distribute to friends, and eventually left painting altogether in favour of poetry, photography, music, and performance art. He taught fine arts at a number of post-secondary institutions, including University of Regina, Vancouver Art School, George Williams, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and UBC, and was an important mentor and friend to many artists and poets both within and outside of institutional settings. Kiyooka’s artistic way of moving through life and his way of creating connections among artists is revealed in his astonishing collections of poem-letters to various friends and family, transcanada letters (1975) and the posthumous Pacific Rim Letters.