Art
Sensual drawings, numerical compulsions and canoes

By Virginia Wageman
Advertiser Art Critic

"Forbidden Fruit" is the title of Noelani Block's exhibition of drawings at Bibelot Gallery, with layered references to sexuality, sensuality and seduction. Block's subjects are both the female nude and still lifes with fruit, both often appearing together in one drawing.

•	Noelani Block • Bibelot Gallery • 1130 Koko Head Ave. • Through Nov. 2 • 738-0368 Deborah Nehmad & Cindy Conklin • Gallery at Ward Centre • Through Oct. 26 • 597-8034

Block's female nudes are not stylized figures but are actual portraits, albeit minus the faces. She clearly has a deep connection with her subjects. The fruits are as sensuous as the women: full, ripe and at their perfect peak in color. Most of the fruits are pears, in many varieties, though there are apples, tomatoes, peaches and apricots as well.

These works, particularly the nudes, are, simply put, pretty. Surprisingly, Block's nudes have been kept from display in several venues, presumably for their sexual content. This is surprising and disturbing in that Block's drawings do nothing more than honor the beauty of the human body. Further, they are as much about forms in space as they are about nudity. The tradition of the nude in art history is a long and honorable one; to consider such works unsuitable for viewing is certainly extremely benighted.

Block has lived most of her life in Hawai'i. She studied painting privately with Frans Griesler and Patric Clairbourne Bauernschmidt in the 1970s and 1980s and continues to take classes at the Academy of Arts. She operates her own framing shop in Kaimuki.

'Time after Time'

In her show "Time after Time" at the Gallery at Ward Centre, Deborah Nehmad presents a small group of works on paper that continue her investigation of compulsion and repetition. Numbers, randomly embossed or written on paper, have been the primary subject of Nehmad's work for several years.

Her primary medium is pyrography, the use of heat or fire to make a mark. In many of her prints, numbers are embossed using heated metal punches, with the heat sometimes burning entirely through the paper. Recently, she has backed some of these burnt-through pieces with hot red paper, suggestive of the fire that is the instrument and creator of the imagery.

Nehmad's world, as expressed in her art, is one that is almost out of control, that is brought under control and given continuity by the act of obsessively placing numbers on paper. The numbers refer to levels of pain, but they refer as well to whatever the viewer brings to them.

Noteworthy are works with grids of burnt squares or rectangles that range in tone from light to very dark brown, depending on the strength of the burn — the depth of the pain.

The 10 works on view at Ward Centre demonstrate both a fresh view and a continuing look at the artist's theme, which seems ever fresh and with limitless possibilities.

Nehmad studied law and was an attorney before she moved to Hawai'i in 1984. She received an M.F.A. in printmaking from the University of Hawai'i in 1998 and has been a rising star on the local art scene since.

Canoes

Like Nehmad, Cindy Conklin is a relative newcomer to Hawai'i. But she has quickly assimilated the culture and made it integral to her art. Fourteen works in her canoe (or wa'a) series are on view at the Gallery at Ward Centre, surprisingly complementary in tone to the more cerebral works of Nehmad.

Conklin works in watercolor on paper, layering on colors to achieve density as well as luminosity. Her images are of paddlers, dancers, petroglyphs, tattoo designs, palm trees and other figures that serve as metaphors for traditional Hawaiian culture.

The inspiration for the current work was a performance last year of Auntie Nona Beamer's halau at 'Iolani Palace, "a performance that brought tears of joy to me and to many others," writes Conklin in her artist's statement. "The dancing was so powerful, so important a part of the truth of this place that I was happy enough just to see it," she continues. "To be able to translate it through my art is an added blessing."

Rather than deliberately copy Hawaiian designs, Conklin creates imagery expressive of Native Hawaiian themes. She masses petroglyph designs together to make an abstract pattern, or she organizes turtle petroglyphs in a row, overlaying them with a wash of green to suggest the sea.

The design elements, especially the silhouetted hula dancers and canoe paddlers, are strongly evocative of place. In another's hands, such imagery might become cute or precious, but Conklin's earthy palette on handmade paper works to avoid sentimental overtones.

Several of the works are less than successful in their overall integration of the varied design elements, which are disparately organized across the sheet and sometimes lack focus. In that respect, the smaller works with fewer elements are more successful. However, the larger paintings with a melange of random designs work as a kind of dreamlike representation of Hawaiian culture, which is surely part of the artist's intent.

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