Art Review
Four current exhibits present variety of views

With its current installation of vibrant canvases by Amy Russell, the Koa Gallery at Kapi‘olani Community College is ablaze with color and light. The title of the exhibition, "Throw a Little Color on It," is an understatement, to say the least.

Amy Russell, “Underground,” 1993, oil on canvas. David Behlke

Russell, a longtime resident of Kane‘ohe, has been painting daily for nearly 50 years, with time out to raise three children. Her color-filled abstractions show the influence of the abstract expressionists of the ’50s and ’60s, and are particularly reminiscent of such women proponents of the movement as Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler.

Russell’s response to nature and to emotion is intuitive and subjective. She works spontaneously, approaching each canvas with no scheme in mind. Thin layers of bold colors over the white ground of the canvas, Ã la Frankenthaler, evoke a sense of liquid luminosity.

Splashes of color explode across Russell’s canvases, often accompanied by calligraphic lines and squiggles that hint at an enigmatic narrative. Her paintings are large - about 4 by 5 feet - and, without exception, joyful and sunny.

Murray Turnbull

Also reflecting a certain joie de vivre, though in a more ordered and figurative style, are the paintings of Murray Turnbull currently on view at Gallery ‘Iolani. A prolific artist, now in his 80s, Turnbull created the 45 works on view during the year 2000. (Last year he exhibited 160 ink drawings at Queen Emma Gallery, all made in 1999.)

Murray Turnbull, untitled, 2000, acrylic on paper. Murray Turnbull

Like Russell, Turnbull doesn’t plan his paintings in advance. He has said that he starts each work "not knowing where I am going or what I am saying, letting the doing of it . . . reveal to me what I had not known beforehand was there."

The images that emerge from Turnbull’s subconscious are related to a kind of collective unconscious, with such totemic symbolism as birds, plant life, eyes, the moon and serpents.

Especially numerous are hands, often disembodied and sometimes mutating into other images. In the work illustrated here, the hands have eyes, and they become faces when the painting is turned.

Turnbull’s imagery invites contemplation and meditation. Though humor is not their main focus, these paintings nevertheless demonstrate a quirky sense of fun achieved by an artist whose professed aim is to be "willfully enigmatic."

An ominous note creeps in occasionally in the guise of a hanged man, or even just the noose, but for the most part Turnbull’s paintings, in their vibrant colors and energetic imagery, reflect an artist having a ball in the golden years of his life.

Betty Fines

Celebrating black history month, the Queen Emma Gallery is showing a selection of fiber art by Betty Fines, a self-taught artist who also wears the hat of a state librarian.

Titled "Fragments of a Journey," the show includes works that are related to Africa, slavery, the Underground Railroad and the Civil War.

Using fabrics printed with African designs or calico patterns that evoke the cloth used by early American seamstresses, Fines has created wall hangings and quilts that serve as powerful reminders of America’s shameful slavery period.

Particularly interesting are quilts that replicate patterns in quilts made by slaves. The designs served as coded messages giving information on how one could escape to the North. For instance, a monkeywrench conveyed the message that tools should be gathered in preparation for escape. These quilts were hung out on fences in Southern slave quarters to inform runaways-to-be.

One quilt depicts Harriet Tubman, the famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. She is shown in the dress and bonnet of a Quaker, a disguise she wore to avoid detection.

Extensive documentation serves to explain some of the oral traditions associated with slavery, making this an enlightening as well as an enjoyable exhibition.

Erickson and Guarnier

Finally, for a bit of whimsy from the younger set, check out the wall drawings by Drew Erickson and Ariana Guarnier at the Gallery at Coffeeline. The two artists, both UH students, use yarn and thread to "draw" urban landscapes on the gallery’s walls. In the most complex of the drawings, "In the Jungle," a Keith Haring-type figure vibrates in an abstracted architectural setting.

Clearly these drawings aren’t intended to be major artistic statements, but they are good fun.

Virginia Wageman can be reached at VWageman@aol.com

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