Graduated from Emily Carr College of Art and Design with honours in painting. He is of Coast Salish and Okanagan descent. He was born in Kamloops 1957 and grew up in Richmond BC in a very political family. His father, Ben Paul, of the Cowichan Tribes astute politician and an active member of the North American Indian Brotherhood and founder of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs along with his mother, Connie Paul, is Syilx, part of the Okanagan Nation Alliance and leader of the Indian Homemakers Association of BC provided Yuxwelupton with an acute awareness of issues facing indigenous peoples and an education rich in Indigenous culture. They encouraged him to follow a career in politics but he chose arts and today his paintings document the damaging racialized history of indigenous peoples by calling out prejudices and environmental degradation and promote change. Today he is among the most overtly critical artists practicing in Canada today; he doesn’t shy away from depicting the devastating realities that face many indigenous people.
My first impression of Yuxweluptons work is one of Awe and “Man he is good!” His work is outstanding full of vibrant symbolism of his culture with political social and environmental metaphors some overtly exposed some tucked away in subtle images. With his paintings he documents the damaging racialized history of indigenous peoples by calling out prejudices and environmental degradation and promotes change.
Not being indigenous I can only know second hand the racism and issues indigenous peoples continue to live with. Yuxwelupton calls attention to the struggles and stands up to face down the bigotry, prejudices and damage done to his peoples. His bold, brightly coloured surrealist paintings have overtly political statements with titles that call out racism, land use and land ownership issues. The titles add meaning to the images and help me to understand further those struggles and issues.
He works primarily in painting and also creates multimedia work and sculptures that incorporates traditional elements from Northwest First Nations art. , as well as landscape painting with elements of Surrealism similar to Salvador Dali. His process is of “truth-telling and healing” through a unique hybridized Northwest Coast aesthetics of ovoid’s and stylized form lines.
His paintings are bold, bright and large in size. I think the size of the canvas and the subject matter, bold, solid colours in life size characters and images up front emphasized by vibrant backgrounds give more power to an already powerful statement. As a teenager his name was given to him by the Sxwaixwe Society and it means, “man of many masks”. You will notice that most all of his paintings have mask imagery in them.
I find Yuxweluptons work powerful. I watched a few video interviews and to hear him speak is a pleasure. He is a clear, succinct speaker a strong warrior and his thoughtful intelligence, organization and resilience show in his large bold creative style.
Yuxweluptun Residential School Dirty Laundry, 2013, mixed media.
Multimedia piece Residential School Dirty Laundry illustrates a cross made out of children’s underwear with red paint to represent blood, and references the treatment of First Nations children in the Canadian Indian Residential school system.
Killer Whale Has a Vision and Comes to Talk to Me about Proximological Encroachments of Civilizations in the Ocean, 2010, acrylic on canvas.
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun “Fish Farmers,” 2014, acrylic on canvas, 162.6 x 244 cm
Fucking Creeps, They’re Environmental Terrorists, 2013, acrylic on canvas
