Multiple works installed in SITElines.2018: much wider than a line

This idea of ritual and healing also informs the paintings and sculptures of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. In Floor Opener, 2013, six figures gather around a stylized Northwest Coast ovoid on the floor. Some hold drums, others have their mouths open as if singing. A few look as though they are mid-dance. Some of their bodies are rendered solid, while others appear carved, with legs and feet inscribed with other faces, other beings. Dark wooden walls and large ceiling beams surround the figures; in the background, a door is open to the outside, where a single cloud hovers in the night sky. Yuxweluptun has painted many a ceremony in the sacred big house. It is as though he lifts the thin veil dividing the human-world and the spirit-world to provide them access to each other. Resting on a platform extending in front of the painting, a collection of brightly painted wooden ovoids resemble totemic trees. While many of Yuxweluptun's paintings are searing critiques of environmental destruction and the damaging effects of the capitalist system, examples like this instead create space for the representation of other belief systems. At the same time, they call on us to pay better attention and to take better care of all things in our midst. How can we make space for the voices sounding at the margins? How do we amplify the voices of dissent?
Text written by Curator Candice Hopkins for the exhibition catalog.