A painting by Indigenous artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun is being auctioned to raise funds for survivors of Canada's Indian residential schools.

The large (six feet by eight feet) acrylic-on-canvas work, titled Indian Residential School, Leaving the Shallow Graves and Going Home, is intended to mark Canada's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and to create awareness of the history and legacy of residential schools while also helping the survivors.

All funds raised from the auction—which is being conducted online as of yesterday (June 6) by Heffel Fine Art Auction House until June 22—will go to two organizations dedicated to those aims, the Orange Shirt Society and the Indian Residential School Survivors Society.

The unframed painting was completed this year by Yuxweluptun, who was born in Kamloops and raised in Richmond, B.C. The acclaimed artist is of Coast Salish and Okanagan Nation ancestry and graduated with honours in 1983 from what was then called the Emily Carr College of Art and Design. The acclaimed art school, now Emily Carr University of Art + Design, bestowed an honourary doctorate on the activist artist in 2019.

The striking work of art, commissioned by Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc., is estimated by Heffel to eventually be sold for between $125,000 and $175,000, according to a June 6 Heffel bulletin, which also noted that both the auction house and Yuxweluptun representative Macaulay & Co. Fine Art will be donating their buyer's premium and commission, respectively.

For lot details and to register to bid, go here.