Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun – New Work

Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, the renowned First Nations artist, presents new works at Macaulay & Co. Fine Art in Vancouver through March 25. (Exhibition images follow, but be sure to watch the video at the end of this post on his extraordinary 2022 painting about Residential School victims in shallow graves)

Install view, Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun’s exhibition at Macaulay & Co. Fine Art. Rachel Topham Photography

Yuxweluptun, Of Cowichan (Hul’q’umi’num Coast Salish) and Okanagan (Syilx) descent, creates provocative works that confront the colonialist suppression of First Nations peoples and the ongoing struggle for Indigenous rights to lands, resources and sovereignty.

Our Ancestral Spirits Walk With Us, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 72 X 54.” Byron Dauncey Photography

Yuxweluptun is Salish for “man of many masks,” a name given to the artist during his initiation into the Sxwaixwe Society at the age of fourteen. Lets’lo:tseltun was given to Lawrence by Sto:lo artist Laura Wee Lay Laq in 2018 and means “man of many colours.”

Indian Residential School, Leaving the Shallow Graves and Going Home, acrylic on canvas, 2022

Many of Yuxweluptun’s works are searing visuals expressing the agony of injustice. Listen to the artist talk about the Shallow Graves painting (above) commissioned by an investment firm to raise money for Residential School survivors,