Appearing like energy coaxed into form, Oilers Phenoma by Alex Janvier builds a composition that feels both fluid and electric. Ribbon-like lines curl and loop across the canvas, drawing the eye in continuous motion. Janvier’s use of colour is bold and strategic: vivid teals and seafoam greens snake through the surface, balanced by flashes of warm ochres, reds, and violets. These hues seem to vibrate against the neutral ground, which remains largely untouched, giving the composition room to breathe while heightening the visual impact of every mark. There is no central focal point; rather, the eye travels in constant motion, pulled along by arcs and intersections that suggest both chaos and choreography.

Though Janvier sometimes used representational forms, Oilers Phenoma offers no clear visual context—only its title verso hints at meaning. A riot of motion and colour that arcs and spins in curved lines that seem to echo the kinetic grace of a game of hockey mid-play. Painted in 1981, as the Edmonton Oilers rose to national prominence and surged into something almost mythical, this work may allude to both the momentum of the moment and of the team.Like energy coaxed into form, Oilers Phenoma by Alex Janvier is a composition that feels both fluid and electric. Ribbon-like lines curl and loop across the canvas, drawing the eye into continuous motion. Janvier’s use of colour is bold and strategic: vivid teals and seafoam greens snake through the surface, balanced by flashes of warm ochres, reds, and violets. These hues seem to vibrate against the neutral ground, which remains largely untouched, giving the composition room to breathe while heightening the visual impact of every mark. There is no central focal point; rather, the eye travels in constant motion, pulled along by arcs and intersections that suggest both chaos and choreography. Though Janvier sometimes used representational forms, Oilers Phenoma offers no clear visual context, only its title verso hints at meaning. A riot of motion and colour that arcs and spins in curved lines that seem to echo the kinetic grace of a game of hockey mid-play.

References: A more direct reference to Hockey is made by the artist in his work End of the Line for Hockey, 1981, in the Petro-Canada Corporate Art Collection, illustrated in Lee-Ann Martin, The Art of Alex Janvier: His First Thirty Years, 1960-1990, exh. cat., (Thunder Bay: Thunder Bay Art Gallery, 1993), cat. 42, p. 58. Likewise, Upon Janiver’s death, The Edmonton Oil Kings, shared via social media, “The Oil Kings would like to send our deepest condolences to the Janvier family as they mourn the loss of Alex Janvier. Alex created the gorgeous artwork that thousands of Oil Kings fans get the pleasure of viewing every time they visit Rogers Place. Not only a talented artist, Alex was a passionate hockey fan and he will be greatly missed.” https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?story_fbid=869352908561929&id=100064616832655, accessed 24 March 2025. Janvier also received the commission for a mural on the floor of Ford Hall in Rogers Place, home of the Oilers, called Tsa Tsa Ke K’e (Iron Foot Place). Despite the edited version in the published catalogue, the author acknowledges Wayne Gretzky’s central role in the rise of the Oilers, but chooses not to centre him here, out of principle, and partly in protest. Greatness, after all, need not always be synonymous with praise, especially when its voice has grown discordant with the nation that shaped it.