Roger Vilder

Roger Vilder was born in 1938 in Beirut, Lebanon. He lived in Paris, Le Havre, and Casablanca before immigrating to Canada in 1957. He studied fine arts at Sir George Williams College (now Concordia University) and later pursued pedagogical studies at McGill University. He taught visual arts for three decades at institutions across North America and currently lives and works between Montreal, Nîmes, and Paris. Vilder is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the Kepes Association in Budapest.

Since the mid-1960s, Vilder has explored the language of motion through sculpture, drawing, video, algorithmic animation, and neon. Rooted in constructivist principles,, his work represents a long-standing inquiry into systems of transformation, frequently using motorized components. His mechanical systems were often designed to be deliberately slow, emphasizing transformation over spectacle and echoing natural cycles of change. In 1971, he began using computers to generate animated sequences and, two years later, he created computer-assisted drawings at the Canadian Meteorological Centre, which he later translated into serial sculptures and prints. Vilder treated the computer not as a tool of precision, but as a collaborator in generating variation, randomness, and unexpected visual results. Across media, he uses simple geometric forms to examine patterns of growth and decay, modulating space, color, and proportion in what he has described as a sensual, organic continuum. Some works directly referenced mathematical forms such as the Boy’s Surface, reinterpreted in neon and plexiglass as kinetic sculpture. His use of neon extended kinetic concerns into light and color, creating works that pulse or flicker in rhythm with programmed intervals. His process foregrounds repetition, variation, and structural logic, revealing how abstract systems can evoke natural rhythms.

Vilder was one of the few Canadian artists to appear in Kinetics at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1970, a major early survey of kinetic art. He exhibited widely throughout the 1970s, including at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal as well as the Walker Art Center, and continued to show internationally in the decades that followed, with solo exhibitions in Barcelona and Brussels. His work is held in public collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Kunstmuseen Krefeld, and Fondation Villa Datris.