A new public art installation by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun on the future site of the Vancouver Art Gallery officially launches this Thursday.
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun is an acclaimed Coast Salish/Okanagan artist known for work that brings a political perspective to First Nations iconography.
On Thursday, the Vancouver Art Gallery will unveil a new public art installation by Yuxweluptun on the future site of the gallery. Ovoid, by Yuxweluptun, officially launches Sept 22, at Larwill Park, on the corner of West Georgia and Cambie streets.
Ovoidism is said to be the artist’s largest outdoor art project to date. The piece is based on the ovoid, a rounded oval-rectangular shape that is a key design element in Northwest Coast art. According to a Vancouver Art Gallery press release, “This shape is an essential building block from which movements flow or design patterns emanate to form a figure, often representing joints (shoulder, hip, wing, pectoral fin), as well as eye sockets and teeth.”
For this commissioned artwork, Yuxweluptun used laminated plywood and latex paint.
Ovoidism is the second installation of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Larwill Park site project. The location has been used as a parade ground, fairground and sports field, a space for celebration and for protest, and more recently, as a bus depot and parking lot. Last fall, the Gallery launched the first installation of nine oversized cutout images taken from documentary photographs of Larwill’s past.
Ovoidism will be on display at the Larwill Park site until September, 2017.
An Indian Game, one of the works on display at the Museum of Anthropology’s Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: Unceded Territories exhibit.
Meanwhile, those interested in viewing more of the artist’s work can still see Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: Unceded Territories. The Museum of Anthropology (at the University of British Columbia, 6393 N.W. Marine Drive) exhibit runs until Oct. 16. Hours are 10 a.m. – 5 p .m. except Tue (10 a.m. – 9 p.m.); admission is $18; $13 students, seniors with valid ID, and only $10 Tue from 5 – 9 p.m.
