Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun is among the most overtly critical artists practising in Canada today, assuredly depicting the devastating realities that face many Native people. He does this through a unique hybridization of Northwest Coast aesthetics – ovoids and stylized formlines – and the dream-like qualities of Surrealism. This painting shows Yuxweluptun’s mastery of his abstracted Northwest Coast style; the mountains are covered in masks and fragments of bodies, hands and eyes. The subject matter is a continuation of what the artist has termed “the toxilogical landscape,” a land degraded as a result of human development.
