Created from the canvas of the same title housed in the Vancouver Art Gallery, and its accompanying sketch in the National Gallery of Canada, Clear Cut to the Last Tree stands as a poignant testament to Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun's interrogation of the connections between colonialism, Indigenous rights, and environmental destruction. The artwork ushers viewers into a space of trauma: a landscape ravaged by irresponsible resource extraction. This trauma is made physical by Yuxweluptun's rendering of two Indigenous figures in the foreground. Their forms reduced to almost skeletal states to convey a profound sense of despair as they laboriously traverse across the desolate expanse of a once-thriving landscape.

In Yuxweluptun's visual world, every natural element is depicted with ovoid shapes, which hold historical significance in Northwest Coast art. Thus, everything is imbued with great meaning, a sentiment best encapsulated by the artist's own words, “I can touch the earth with my bare feet and understand that it’s still my native land” [2]. The vibrant colours amplify the sense of urgency and intensity, making Clear Cut to the Last Tree a highly successful and deeply affecting image that provokes thought about critical issues affecting not only Indigenous communities but the global environment as a whole.

1. Also Clearcut to the Last Tree

2. Petra Wilson, ed., Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: Neo-Native Drawings and Other Works, 2010, p. 8.

References: Clear Cut to the Last Tree, acrylic on canvas, is illustrated on the artist’s website (https://lawrencepaulyuxweluptun.com/retrospective.html). It is also illustrated in Arthur Kroker, Marilouise Kroke, Critical Digital Studies: A Reader, 2nd ed.(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), p. 146; Affrica Taylor, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, Unsettling the Colonial Places and Spaces of Early Childhood Education, (sl: Taylor & Francis, 2015), unpag.; and in Mark Cheetham, Landscape Into Eco Art: Articulations of Nature Since the ’60s, (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2018). The sketch in the NGC is discussed in Andrea Kunard et. al, Shine a Light: Canadian Biennial 2014, (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2014), p. 226. The full citation for the artist’s quote can be read in Petra Wilson, ed., Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: Neo-Native Drawings and Other Works, (Vancouver: Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery, 2010), p. 8.