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. Â
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
Exercise #1. My Secret place also known as the back forty is a place I use to go to on my own when a young girl. When I think back to my childhood this place I go to often with happiness.
Acrylic on board 16 x20
Memory exercise #2. Remembering what I saw
I painted two pictures as while outside I came across two images that stuck with me and encouraged me to take them with me.
Crotch in the Cherry acrylic 16×20Repellent Acrylic on canvas 16×20
#3 Planned Memory of an exterior scene
The trunks on the beach in this painting are remnants of a forest that was drowned, I believe, when Comox Lake was dammed to moderate its flow and provide water for Courtenay and Comox.
When it is time for peace in heart and balance of mind from the demands of surviving in todays continuous cycle of anticipated anxiety, I head for the richness of the natural world. This spot on the beaches of Comox Lake with the ancient tree trunks jutting up through the grass create a visual effect to contemplate. Like petrified obelisks they remind us of sacrifices made and arouse solemn thought and provoke a sense of gratitude.
“In the space between light and dark, on shadows edge, there is communication at play. Like rapid firing of neurons as they conduct, we are connected energies on the verge of light and darkness.” Cindy Gaboury
FIN 245 is my first introduction to photography and learning how to use a camera. It may seem amazing that at my age I have never had any formal training in photography. All I know from taking a picture is to point the camera at the object and click the button. The technical language of the camera is so foreign to me I find myself getting lost on the learning path. Though I have a lot to learn the path is steep and long I look forward to the journey.
It is through the medium of photography that I wish to show how nature survives the ever impact of the human footprint. Our interaction with nature is not always pastoral. Though we are part of nature, too often we set ourselves aside from it. By altering the landscape to suit our needs we create a concrete world and, an artificial unnatural landscape. Â Â
Robert Adams says that light is at the center of why and how one makes pictures. By pursuing the study of light, I attempt to show it as the physical ingredient at the center of all creation. Without light, there is no darkness, no shadow to emphasize life’s edge. I seek to explore the co-existence of the design of nature and the architecture of humans. By employing the play of light with dark I intend to point out nature’s will to survive in the urban landscape.
My proposal is to call out the energy that exists in the space between natural landscape and human architecture. In the cracks and crevasses, the spaces where human architecture impacts on the organic world. The two collide causing a flash connection pulling us, the viewer the passer-by into their performance. By employing the play of light with dark I intend to point out nature’s will to survive in the urban landscape.
Not really knowing what I am doing when it comes to the camera itself, I intrepidly stepped out into my neighborhood. I took a series of photographs within two days. An early evening walk with the sun slowly setting in the west allowed me to capture a few images of weeds, grasses, and a few trees pushing through concrete sidewalks and paved roads. The next day I woke early with the sunrise and walked the same area and captured a few more images of nature pushing its life force through the concrete and wire mesh of the human world. On both days I had forgotten my notebook in which I record camera settings at the time of picture-taking. However, I think most of the pictures were taken with an F8 and F16. Some were overexposed others underexposed and most out of focus
Finished Project:
In the space between Light and dark, on shadows edge there is communication at play. Like the rapid firring of neurons as they conduct, we are connected energies on the verge of light and dark.
The idea of light being at the centre of why and how we make pictures is such a simple, yet profound statement made by the landscape photographer, Robert Adams. This was an “ah-ha, yes of course!”, moment for me and influenced my choice of landscape to photograph. I interpreted Adams’ light being at the centre as a metaphor for life and positivity. The relationship between light and dark is important, as light is lost without dark, and dark is void without light. In that l space where the two dichotomies meet, life’s edge is emphasized. This coexistence of light and dark is also echoed in the spaces where organic nature and human architecture collide in brilliant existence. I set out to find this brilliant existence, the dynamic balance of life in the landscape of my environment, the city of Courtenay.
Walking my city streets with this understanding I began to see light differently in my surroundings. I explored the co-existence of urban architecture with the design of nature. I soon saw how human disturbances on the organic landscape stressed natures resourcefulness to survive, the light in the darkness of human architecture. Now when I walk the blocks of my city, I see differently my landscape. I look, into the place where I am, and I see energy in the shadows verge.
In the past I have never put in any thought to picture taking. I assumed one just held a camera pointed and clicked. My view of photography is improving. There is so much more to photography than just taking a “good”, picture. I have learned that I must slow down spend time with the subject matter be in the environment and learn more about it before clicking the button. I find that my understanding of how light plays a role in the interpretation of composition has improved.
Photography is a foreign medium to me. My preferred medium has always been acrylic painting working using colour for statement emphasis. I have a steep learning trajectory when it comes to photography, especially black and white. The process has been intimidating as well. From learning the camera mechanics to navigating WordPress and the MacLab computer systems, (so daunting and anxiety causing). Though I was able to scan my negatives and save them to my USB, I couldn’t figure out how to print from the MacLab printer. I have never developed film and printed my own photos.
By far the most enjoyable for me has been developing photos in the dark room. It is such a meditative, Zen like experience. This project has forced me to slowdown, step back and observe. Something I had forgotten to be, the quiet, learning observer. It has reminded me of patience and to persevere.
Is based out of New York and is currently an artist-in-residence at the World Trade Center through Silver Art Projects (2020 – 2022)
Painting and mark-making that explores the metaphysical and physical spaces of society and social structure, ethnicity, race, colour, and gender,
“Following in the traditional conversation of painting and making marks and gestures that interrogates the space. A mark, as physical and present as cave markings, which says, “I am here” or “I was here.” It reveals the thinker behind the gesture – evidence of prior markings of ideas and self onto the space. The identity of the mark-maker is equally important as the mark itself. Or else, the context can be blurred and forgotten behind the physical aesthetics.”
Attained his BFA, at the University of Southern California in 2007 and his MFA at Parsons the New School for Design in 2015.
He has exhibited his work in both solo and group shows across the U.S and Europe.
“Taking the names of songs from Hip-Hop, R&B, Jazz, Blues, and Reggae music, Shiferaw makes paintings that embody the experiences and struggles expressed through music by Black artists and composers. He often explores a spectrum of topics ranging from the notion of Black bodies in a white social construct to the popular idioms of romance, sex, and daily life – existence. Appropriating song titles as points of reference for his paintings, the works automatically inherit musical references, identities, and histories.”
Tariku Shiferaw, Ivy (Frank Ocean), 2020 [photo: Mike Jensen; courtesy of the artist and the Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw]
Mad (Solange), 2020 [photo: Mike Jensen; courtesy of the artist and the Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw]
I am drawn to Shiferaw’s work with intrigue. I am curious about why he has done what he has done. Why are the bright intense strips laid out across a black surface? Why on only the lower part? The strips are painted in an abstract manner resembling marble swirls of white, browns and pale blue. If they were put together, would they form an image and tell a story?
When I look closer the black background is not entirely black it is not one solid shade. It is as if I am in a darkened room and peering out through the opened slats of a window or door. The strips are a broken glimpses of what is beyond the boundaries. The strips of marbled paper are spaces that we have a glimpse of but can’t tell what is there. The darker areas are not entirely empty spaces as we can make out hues of darkness yet can’t make out if anything is there. Like a darkened bedroom at the monster hour of the night.
Shiferaw uses coloured bands in his work because he finds them aesthetically pleasing to engage with. These bars are inspired by wooden shipping palettes that Shiferaw finds “Cool” the wood dirty and smeared and sometimes blue. wood dirty or smeared, and others a blue.
Shiferaw speaks of his creative process as a journey through life where he takes in the world around him as it is happening. All the colours, sounds, shades, shadows, and lights. He will stop in his tracks and investigate a space or sound or object of discovery and take in how feels and he will spend time trying it out.
“I had a very inspiring, pivotal moment. In 2013, I encountered this life-size mirror that was thrown on the sidewalk of my street in Los Angeles. It was a dirt sidewalk where the grass had not grown yet. The mirror was cracked and it had just rained. Over the weeks, bits of grass started growing through the shards of the mirror. You could see the blue sky and the clouds and then the trees on its surface. I laid down in this glass and there was all around me this floating sky, but then the green of the grass. That image stayed in my imagination.”
His interest in using geometric shapes in his work arises from his metaphysical examination of the meaning s these shapes hold for cultures throughout history. The rectangular horizontal shapes for Shiferaw hold the context of a deconstructed X and there the bars function as an X does in society, which is many things. To Shiferaw this means multiple possibilities with no true end.
“I’m interested in the in-between places of meaning, where there’s no true resting place for the form or a singular meaning it’s tied to. The non-referential quality of geometric forms allows for possibilities that well-defined symbols couldn’t perform. I’m also interested in the ambiguity these forms ignite within the work.
The way in which Shiferaw arranges his geometric shape and the design of his work works well. There is a rhythmic tone to his work. The bars push out at us and pull us in for a closer look and the darker background pulls us in but keeps us at a distance. Our eyes are left searching in the infinite possibilities.
I like the way Shiferaw explores his creative process of mark-making with his philosophical exploration of societal structures and the spaces in between. He works with spray paint, and acrylics on plastics, wood, and canvas.
The dichotomy presented in the relationship between the two colors became very loud. The color black is often tabooed in society, while blue is revered as the symbol of the heavens above. However, in the Blues, the blue represents a type of melancholy, it describes the hardship of life caused as a result of having Black skin. Songs in this genre describe the bruising of the skin into black and blue, while simultaneously placing hope in the liberation of the soul. These colors are super abstracted and can weave in and out of a number of topics.”
As a child, her family fled to Germany after the Soviet Union occupied Latvia during WW II, 1940. Prior to being relocated to Indianapolis, USA, with the aid of the NPO, The World Church Service her family lived in a UN-supported Latvia refugee camp in Germany.
As a young refugee in a foreign country with a foreign language, she concentrated on her creative instincts to persevere. She was encouraged by teachers to continue to draw and paint.
BFA at John Herron School of Art, Indianapolis. MFA UCLA, California
She taught at California State University, LA., UCL, Irvine, and California Institute of the Arts. She also taught at the Cooper Union and Yale University School of Art.
Abstract painter, and sculptor and worked in graphite pencil, charcoal, eraser, woodcut, and printing.
Most of her earlier work focused on violence and conflict with apparent randomness and thus dispassionate attitude. Perhaps disconnectedness.
She created moonscapes, ocean surfaces, star fields, shells, and spider webs, which often share the characteristic of not having a reference point: no horizon, depth of field, edge, or landmarks to put them into context. The location, constellation, or scientific name are all unknown – there is no information imparted.
Her later work explores negative space removing darkness from images and achieving subtle control of grey tones.
From 2008, Celmins returned to objects and representative work, with paintings of maps and books, as well as many uses of small graphite tablets – handheld blackboards. She also produced a series of prints of her now well-known waves, spiderwebs, shells, and desert floors, many of which were exhibited at the McKee Gallery in June 2010. She recently released a new series of prints that includes both night sky and waves mezzotints. These prints were exhibited at the Matthew Marks Gallery in January, February, and March 2018 and at the Senior & Shopmaker Gallery in February and March 2018.
Her woodcuts of water can take a year to cut; she has commented that they “remind us of ‘the complexity of the simplest things”.
Jigsaw Puzzle, 1966, 31 x 25 x 5, Vija Clemins: History, Analysis & Facts ArtHive
Concentric bearings 1984
As a young girl in her newly settled home in Indianapolis, Indiana, Celmins began collecting images from comic books and picture-playing cards. Highlighting the importance of imagery from this early age the artist later reflected: ‘I had stacks of comics because I had sort of taught myself how to read because I couldn’t speak English. I only spoke Latvian, really’ (quoted in Sussler 2011, p.6).
Celmins began using found photography as her source material in the mid-1960s, during the period when she was also engaged in making sculptures based on everyday functional objects. These sculptures are striking in their resemblance to actual objects and employ the Surrealist method of changing the size and scale.
I liked Vija Clemin’s work. I think I am an art appreciator. I really like the journey viewing art takes me on. I smiled when I saw the Jigsaw puzzle as I can relate to using the idea of puzzles in creating art. So, I had to find out more. I didn’t find much about the puzzle other than it was painted and a woodcut.
The painting is of what looks like stones steaming in a bowl. She began to work with stones in the late 1970 and early 1980 after two relationship separations. She started out painting stones themselves explaining it was her first step back into painting in oils as she wanted her work to carry more weight.
Using paint on the stones was the first step; oil on canvas, after eighteen years of working in pencil or charcoal, was more difficult. “When I started painting again in the mid-eighties, I couldn’t finish anything,” she told the artist Chuck Close. “I felt like a baby crawling on my hands and knees.” She resumed painting, she said, because “I wanted the work to carry more weight.”
As for the idea of the puzzle, I think it fits in with her idea of “things” not being weighted down by earthly sculpture and as seen in her print, Concentric Bearings, her process is to transform found objects working two dimensions into three and hurtling them out into the fourth-dimensional space. Every day mundane objects, toys, games, and found objects become ephemeral.
Her first New York show was in 1983, at the McKee Gallery, on Fifty-seventh Street….In the middle of the room was a large plaster slab holding the eleven stones and their painted bronze duplicates, which she had finally finished. They were laid out in carefully randomized order. In two places a matched pair were close together, but the rest were separated. The piece puzzled and intrigued viewers. “Some people thought she had traveled the world and found eleven identical stones,” McKee told me. The work’s quiet power—its ability to capture and hold people’s interest—was never in doubt, and Celmins’s title for it, “To Fix the Image in Memory: I-XI (1977-1982),” was every artist’s ambition.
“The basic thing that I like about painting is that it is non-verbal,” says Celmins. “Observation is closer to thought than to words.”
