Robert "Bob" Boyer (July 20, 1948 – August 30, 2004) was a Canadian visual artist and university professor of aboriginal decent. He was a Métis Cree known for his politically charged abstract paintings.  Boyer grew up in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan an earned a B.Ed. from the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan in 1971.  Boyer's early paintings use material such as acrylics, paper, and canvas. The earliest paintings are realistic, but he soon embarked on an effort to incorporate an abstract style in his work. One of the earliest results of this is "Horses Can Fly, Too," a representation of a horse-figure streaking through the sky. Boyer is well known for his large-scale geometric paintings on felt blankets that he produced primarily in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Boyer used oil paints applied thickly, using rough brush strokes in many of these works. The geometric designs on the blanket paintings come from the tradition motifs of Siouan and Cree in Western Canada. Boyer tended to use traditional colour combinations in early blanket paintings, but some later examples are painted in pastels.  At first Boyer painted about the wrong Europeans have done to Aboriginal peoples, but he later switched to things about the Aboriginal culture and the meaning of life. Boyer called all of this 'Blanket Statements'.  As a university professor and elder, Boyer mentored many young aboriginal and non-aboriginal artists.  Boyer died in 2004 while powwow dancing.