Art Review
Artists display variety of mediums in exhibits around town

There are a lot of excellent exhibitions around town, offering a variety of mediums and subject matter. Many of them are small and easily taken in.

However, plan to spend some time at the Academy Art Center looking at the exquisite photographs of Rowena Otremba, who has not previously had an exhibit in Hawai‘i.

Rowena Otremba: The Beauty of Place Academy Art Center, Honolulu Academy of Arts Through Thursday 532-8700 Dexter Doi and Carol D’Angelo: Consciousness & Lace Academy Art Center, Honolulu Academy of Arts Through Thursday 532-8700 Cindy Conklin and Lynne Ohtani Gallery at Ward Centre Through Friday 597-8034 www.artgalleryhawaii.com Patricia Carelli Cafe Che Pasta, 1001 Bishop St. Through Friday 524-0004

Otremba is from a kama‘aina family of woodcarvers; her grandfather was a favorite of King Kalakaua and executed several commissions for him.

Educated at Star of the Sea, she left Hawai‘i in 1967 and now lives in Boston, where she operates Zona Photographic Labs, well known by top photographers for its premier film-processing.

Otremba brings her concern for the technical quality of the photograph to her own work, executing flawless prints of her full-color images. The exhibition, titled "The Beauty of Place," documents her far-flung travels, from the East Coast to the American West, from Ireland and Scotland to Italy and France, and back to Hawai‘i, where she returns often to visit family.

Masterpieces of composition, the photographs document views of landscape or architecture, each capturing a special beauty that might not be apparent to the eye of the ordinary beholder. Her camera focuses not on the expected, but on, say, a lace-curtained window at Robert Burns’ childhood home or the Stars and Stripes flying against the sky at Pearl Harbor.

In addition to strong framing and graphic balance, mastery of color is another characteristic of Otremba’s work, a response, no doubt, to her early years in Hawai‘i.

In a Wyoming scene, for example, she plays the strong reds of earth off against the vivid blues of the sky. An Irish landscape is unexpectedly drenched in bright green.

Also noteworthy are the thematic contrasts and harmonies achieved by her juxtapositions of photographs. Note, for instance, the blue composition of Hilo Bay hanging next to the green hillside of Dingle Bay, Ireland. A shot of a yellowing fall meadow in Wyoming, hinting at nature’s demise, hangs next to a close-up view — exemplifying nature’s exuberance — of perfectly formed vivid green leaves in Hawai‘i in February.

Rowena Otremba, "Moana Hotel, Honolulu," color photograph.

Dexter Doi, "Uno," encaustic, oil and oil pastel.

Carol D’Angelo, "Lace Dancing," acrylic and fabric.

Rowena Otremba, "Robert Burns’ Childhood Home, Ayer, Scotland," color photograph.

Otremba’s sensitive evocations of place capture the ordinary and make it grand. Every photograph is indeed a beauty.

In the upstairs gallery at the Academy Art Center, Carol D’Angelo and Dexter Doi exhibit recent works in a show titled "Consciousness & Lace," referring, one assumes, to the associations, or memories, related to the imagery.

The collage paintings of D’Angelo move beyond the mere metaphor of lace as memory, incorporating actual pieces of lace in their compositions.

Although the two artists work independently, they have evolved similar styles, especially in their appropriations of imagery. The paintings are interspersed in the hanging, and at first glance one might not be certain which is a D’Angelo and which a Doi.

However, D’Angelo’s compositions are more formally organized, Doi’s more fluid, seemingly more spontaneous. D’Angelo’s layered images are of flowers, leaves, vegetables, dancers, perfectly integrated with fabrics and hinting at a veiled sexuality.

Doi’s images borrow more often from the history of art, melding an Italian influence with the artist’s roots in Asian culture. While D’Angelo’s compositions are harmoniously integrated, Doi’s sometimes seem contrived.

This, I believe, results from the artist’s search for new modes of expression and should eventually be resolved as he continues to experiment with subject.

The Gallery at Ward Centre is currently featuring the work of two artists, Lynn Schoonejongen Ohtani and Cindy Conklin.

Ohtani’s papier-mache creations are positively delightful. Her clever conceptions of fishes, dogs and cats, which she has exhibited regularly in rather large pieces, are here smaller than previously but they have lost none of their charm. For this show of smaller pieces, she also has created an assortment of whimsical flowers. Check them out and chuckle.

Conklin’s watercolor paintings on handmade paper focus on the hula kahiko, but the images of dancers are interspersed with those of warriors, canoes and designs suggesting ancient kapa. Her palette, in its tones of warm brown and yellow, also suggests kapa.

Although it might seem presumptuous for a haole artist to so blatantly appropriate traditional Hawaiian imagery, Conklin’s approach, in which the imagery is clearly only an element in the overall design, seems more a means of paying homage to the rich traditions associated with Hawaiian culture.

With art spilling out of its doors, as usual, the Gallery at Ward Centre displays works by gallery artists at Keo’s Thai restaurant a few storefronts down. Currently there are paintings by Chuck Davis, Helen Iaea and Jeanne Robertson, as well as a wall of wonderful mixed media works by George Woollard.

Another restaurant that has frequent exhibitions is Cafe Che Pasta, currently showing the work of Patricia Carelli (Ebert). Carelli works in a variety of eclectic styles, from traditional, almost old-fashioned color abstractions to a kind of op-art inspired by electronic technology. Some of her work has a hard edge that is jarring, but the more softly focused and colored paintings are quite pleasing.

Virginia Wageman can be reached at VWageman@aol.com.

[back to top]