Art & Soul: Downtown's art scene

• Downtown galleries (map)

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

Sculptor Tanya Pitre stands next to her work, "Pele," a bonded bronze bust at Pitre Fine Arts Gallery on Nu'uanu Avenue. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

The saddest thing about being assigned to again check out downtown Honolulu's ever-evolving art gallery scene isn't so much the number of galleries that always disappear from the last visit — goodbye Salon 5, Sisu Gallery and Abacus ... your absence is felt. No, what's mildly depressing is finding yourself, for the most part, as alone in your travels as you were the last time.

The good news about a downtown art walk? Though most galleries are short on visitor traffic, you'll still encounter a motley crew of art entrepreneurs and their staffs who are not only dedicated to making this small art district work, but love to talk about it.

Here's what we found on a recent Friday:

A makeshift banner outside the recently opened @ the UnDERground invites you to "Art Without Brushes: Contemporary Image Making/Emerging Visions," a one-month show featuring the computer art of the Digital Arts Society of Hawaii.

Walk past the leftover artifacts of a private Chinese and Hawaiian cultural museum that once occupied UnDERground owner Charles Christian Hansen's basement nirvana for the digital arts. Head down the stairs, just past a couple of stairway water pools filled with fragrant floating plumeria, and you'll find Hansen himself — bathed in Beatles music and fluorescent light.

"Fluorescent isn't perhaps the best lighting for presenting," says Hansen, a bit apologetically. "However, if you really think about it, the average person who buys the art puts it in an office and sits under fluorescent light. So, in fact, they're getting exactly what they see."

A digital artist himself, Hansen has filled his gallery with his own brightly colored works — "Keith Richards Playing With Himself" and "Equus Caballus" are a couple of titles — and the art of his friends in the digital arts society. The gallery also features some sculpture work.

While some guest artists' works can climb into the $1,000-plus range, Hansen's are priced as low as $50. "I try to keep it affordable," says Hansen. "I want to get it out of here."

Just 'ewa of @ the UnDERground, on the corner of King and Bethel streets, is the Pacific American Gallery, funded by the Pacific American Foundation, former Bishop Estate trustee Oswald Stender's seven-year-old nonprofit advocacy group.

Director Cookie Isaacs cheerfully shows off the just-opened gallery's collection of somewhat pricey wood and ceramic sculptures, mixed-media paintings and etchings from Pacific island artisans.

"The most difficult thing about getting the gallery started was letting local artists know we wanted to help them sell their work," says Isaacs. Less familiar with the tools and media used by the gallery's artists, Isaacs gets more of a kick sitting down and explaining the funny stories behind some of the pieces, as told to her by the artists.

"This is one where the artist imagines himself as Buddha," Isaacs says about a ceramic rendering of a lanky, bald guy in a lotus position. "We'd love to have the artists teach classes and tell stories here someday."

Sake cups made by Hawai'i craftsmen are displayed at The ARTS at Marks Garage. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

On our visit, the former restaurant space on the ground floor of an ancient Nu'uanu parking garage was temporary home to the 25th annual Raku Ho'olaulea Exhibition by the nonprofit Hawai'i Craftsmen. The show is The ARTS' first large-scale art exhibition since opening in February.

Sensing my complete lack of knowledge of raku, ceramic artist Shigeru Miyamoto walks me through the exhibition, patiently explaining the ancient Japanese ceramic art form and the weekend Kualoa Regional Park beachside firing workshop that produced every piece of ceramic art in the show.

The collection includes the expected — bowls, vases and cups with otherworldly swirls and patterns that identify raku — and the unexpected: oddly shaped bears, toads and humans. The artists range from grade-school-age ceramics students to master craftsmen; prices go from $20 to several thousand dollars.

Across the street from The ARTS, Dana Forsborg, manager of the Pegge Hopper Gallery, offers insight on those who have come before me seeking downtown art-scene wisdom.

"People are always coming down and asking if this is the gallery section of Honolulu, and asking about other galleries they should visit," says Forsborg. "People really want this to be Honolulu's gallery section, but there's never quite enough galleries or venues down here."

Though primarily a showcase for Hopper's work, the gallery also hosts about four shows annually of other local artists working in mixed media.

A Chinese herb store and barbershop in a previous life, Hopper's spacious, skylight-illuminated gallery features a downstairs sparingly decorated with originals, and an upstairs loft for exploring the artist's collection of posters, limited-edition prints, and more experimental etchings and drawings.

Russ Sowers, director of longtime Smith Street gallery the Ramsay Museum, takes delight in talking about any facet of his mono-monikered employer's downtown gallery, and her intricate India-ink depictions of local architecture and more than a few of her favorite things.

"The building was built in the 1920s by the Tan Sing entertainment troupe," says Sowers. "They were Chinese performers who wanted a large rehearsal hall and a large restaurant upstairs. The entire building became a full-scale brothel during World War II."

After a tour of caricatures of the locally rich and infamous, drawn by Corky Trinidad, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin cartoonist, Sowers walks me through a second-floor collection of Ramsay renderings. Along the walls are detailed depictions of everything from New York's Plaza Hotel to the First Hawaiian Bank's historical (and now demolished) downtown branch.

Sowers invites me to pick up a spy glass — magnifying lenses hang alongside each etching — to inspect the detail Ramsay incorporated into the leaves of a tree fronting a Kaua'i general store.

"That took over 300 hours to draw," Sowers says.

We walk into an adjacent courtyard oasis of palms, bamboo and ginger surrounding a pond full of mosquito fish and lily pads, to gaze at the carved lava stones used to construct the building.

"They don't build 'em like this anymore," Sowers sighs.

Walking into the Technicolor fantasy world of Pitre Fine Arts gallery after perusing Ramsay's black-and-white ink etchings warrants a moment of serious eye adjustment.

Though no less intricate, the mystical and mythical paintings and sculpture of surrealist artist John Pitre and his family offers up worlds that are likely far removed from the folks waiting immediately outside.

Pitre's "Passion" depicts a pair of nude lovers — half human and half stone — embracing on a mountaintop under dramatic violet and orange skies. A nearby work titled "Voyage of Man," of a sailing vessel charting a torpid oceanscape of frolicking dolphins, features a similar mood.

The gallery also features the sculpture of daughter Tanya Joy, the mystical nature paintings of daughter Dawn and the magnified flowers of wife Ginette's oils.

While you've got to admire the familial bonds that likely led to its creation, Pitre Fine Arts' ocular assault of varying art styles leaves the gritty realism of Hotel Street a somewhat welcome relief to the senses.

Which brings us to Artmosphere Gallery, an art gallery disguised as a furniture and design store.

Founded by Holly and Steve Surya, Artmosphere's environs resemble what might happen if you took someone's funky Soho loft — replete with a worldly collection of furnishings and art — and transferred it to a smallish street-level storefront in downtown Honolulu. Crowded, yes, but nonetheless fun to explore.

An Indonesian bamboo pune'e strewn with handwoven lauhala pillows occupies a large space in the back of the store opposite a Javanese prince bed up front. Multicolored Vietnamese lamps hang in the large picture window fronting Nu'uanu.

The Suryas host monthly art shows featuring the works of local and international artists.

Photographer/artist Dorys Foltin, whose surreal photographs are featured at the gallery, minds the shop for the out-of-town Suryas.

Though not the only optimist encountered this day, Foltin is perhaps the most hopeful about downtown's evolving art scene.

"I've never seen a community like this one where people support each other," says Foltin, who moved here several years ago from Vienna, Austria. "You really do get support from other artists, even if you just want to get advice or just talk with them and exchange ideas." Foltin turns to glance at the street outside.

"It's so hard to survive here as an artist, though," she sighs. "It is."