Samuel Roy-Bois (b. 1973, Québec City) is an internationally acclaimed artist living in Kelowna, BC. He works with a diverse range of media including photography, drawing, sculpture, performance, and installation to probe the socio-political dynamics of the built environment.

Reward Friends, Punish Enemies is a site-responsive installation—imagined as an intervention into the architectural space of The Polygon—that invokes histories of resource extraction and the forest industry on the North Shore. Venetian blinds made from horizontal slats of discarded cedar obstruct the vista of the Vancouver skyline, while fir-timber beams appear to penetrate The Polygon’s windows, extending from gallery’s interior into the plaza. Roy-Bois’ rustic, handcrafted aesthetic rubs against the steel-and-glass design of the gallery and the surrounding waterfront developments, upending distinctions between interior and exterior, private and public.

Samuel Roy-Bois has exhibited at Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Kamloops Art Gallery; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec, Québec City; Oakville Art Galleries; Or Gallery, Vancouver; Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; SFU Art Gallery, Burnaby; Vancouver Art Gallery and Point éphémère, Paris.

Image: Samuel Roy-Bois, Reward Friends, Punish Enemies, 2019 (detail), site-specific installation

Exhibition Tours

Tours of Reward Friends, Punish Enemies will be hosted every Saturday at 2PM. To join the tour, meet at the ground floor lobby at 1:55PM. These tours are recommended for general visitors as an introduction to the exhibition.

Samuel Roy-Bois: Reward Friends, Punish Enemies is the third in a 10-year commissioning program of new public artworks installed at The Polygon Gallery, in collaboration with the Burrard Arts Foundation.

Photo: Installation view. Photo: SITE Photography