ART
Hawai'i artists' show celebrates art academy's 75th birthday

By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Reviewer

On April 14, the Honolulu Academy of Arts threw a party for its 75th birthday that couldn't have had a better turnout.

The party is over, but many new exhibits fill the galleries, making a return visit to the Academy an excellent notion.

Fifty-one invited local artists were asked to create two- and three-dimensional birthday-themed works that can be treasured-hunted throughout the art academy (or check at the front desk for a list of the artists and the galleries their works are located). The artists were selected for a variety of reasons: Some teach at the Academy, others routinely provide works for the Showcase and Kama'aina Christmas events, and many are entrants in the Artists of Hawai'i shows.

To the task, the artists applied talent, humor, innovation and good wishes. Some of their works show steadfast integrity and a willingness to listen to the muse, which creates entertaining, beautiful and compelling tributes.

"In the Palm of Your Hand" was created by the academy's installation genius, Fujio Kaneko. This colossal sculptural painted wood cake sits on the front lawn. Inspired by composer Erik Satie's concept "ambient musique d'ameublement."

"Furniture Music" by Duncan Dempster is a hypnotic sound installation reminiscent of gamelan music. Dempster manipulated multiple computer programs to create the sound files that originated from the color intensity of photographs of the 18 paintings in Gallery 1 and the spoken titles of the paintings. It would be a pleasing addition to any art exhibit, as it gives a melodic voice to a quiet visual world.

Scattered throughout the galleries, the whimsical clay and quirky polyclay works of Rochelle Lum, S. Kay Mura, Paul Nash and Allyn Bromley sit atop pedestals along with the sculptural and construction pieces of Ryan Masaaki Higa, Rene Iijima, Tae Kitakata, Linda Oszajca, Koi Ozu and Fred Roster as well as the mixed media paper constructions of Marcia Morse and Pat Ekstrand. Plexiglas covers the fiber work of Reiko Brandon and Kristie Higa, the basketry of Gail Toma and the pyrography "Sheet Cake" of Deborah G. Nehmad.

Heralding the celebrationlike sentinels, easels prop up the paintings of Pamela Andelin, Brenda Cablayan, Gaye Chan, Peggy Chun, Dorothy Faison, Nadine Ferraro, Margo Goodwill, Gay Jefferson, Alan Leitner, Alison Manaut, Ingrid Manzione, Mapuana, Faith Milnes, Noreen Naughton, Timothy P. Ojile, Kelly Sueda, Benedict Twigg-Smith, Roger Whitlock and George Woollard. They also hold a collage by Chuck Davis, prints by Anne Irons, Laura Ruby, Joseph Singer, Laura Smith and Dodie Warren. There are mixed media works by Don Dugal, Jodi Endicott, Shirley Hasenyager, Pegge Hopper, Ron Kowalke, Paul Levitt and Nancy Poes.

Perfectly placed in front of a window in Gallery 20, "Boon," a mixed-media glass-and-wood construction by Hanae Uechi Mills and Rick Mills reflects natural light on multicolored glass party hats that rest atop a chair that seems to rise out of infinity. Most of the art works are for sale. You may need to visit more than once to absorb the abundance of inspiration a celebration of this caliber offers the community.

Funky figures

From a theme originated by S. Kay Mura, the driving force of this show, "Go Figure" emphasizes figurative sculpture and painting. The 13 artists in this show previously exhibited at the "WoMan/ Beast" show at the Academy Arts Center. (You may identify some of the artists as participating in the "You Say It's Your Birthday" show at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, too.)

S. Kay Mura brought back her "Funk" series from the '70s in "Funk revisited: The Visitor."

"This particular fun kind of irreverent aesthetic appeals to me," she said. Her ceramic stoneware with low-fire glazes bring fairy tales to form in " ... and baby makes three." "Daddy is a beast and I don't know where baby came from," she said. "I like this idea of family, furniture and setting up these little scenes."

Kazu Fukuda's "Initial Proposal: The Legend of Ka'ahupahau" is the original model in cast stone of the legend of the shark 'aumakua of 'Ewa Beach and Pearl Harbor. It is the story of a girl who changes to a shark and becomes the protector of all people. "What's unique about it is that she protects everyone, not just one family or one person," he said.

Rochelle Lum "just did fun pieces," she said. A Pekinese, C. G. (the monkey Curious George), and a squirrel are raku-fired. They are good garden sculptures.

So are Jodi Endicott's hand-built concrete composites. Endicott's "Yellow Dog" appears to be wanting to either play or attack you. Her trio of contented "Rabbits" are shaped around bricks, bottles and old pieces of concrete. "What I see in the rabbits is that they are a metaphor for what is going on in real life — birth, death, sex ed and birth control," Endicott said.

Her "Some would say" is a series of four paintings, done with graphite oil stick and pencil, of nests and eggs and all the possible combinations and psychological ideas they imply.

A giant in our art world, Masami Teraoka has recently finished two limited editions that are part of this show. The erotic "Sarah and Octopus/Seventh Heaven" originated in 1980 inspired by a Hokusai woodblock print, while "AIDS Series/Geisha and Ghost Cat" is a more recent addition.

Lynda Hess' tiny oil on canvas "Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?" is a blastocyst, the fertile primal cell mass that is needed for cloning. By contrast, "Mommom with her Devils and Talismans" is a large oil on canvas of her grandmother.

"I was imagining her devils," she said. "The green is external and projection, the red internal and whispering paranoia in her ear. The tray is covered with her talismans. We think things are coming from the outside when they are really coming from the inside."

Fred Roster's "Falseface, Honest Hand," a bronze, wood and steel sculpture, and Jo Rowley's "Soulcatcher," a porcelain, hair, metal hooks and hairnet statue, have haunting qualities for such small pieces. Jon Hamblin's brown-paper painted works, Maile Yawata's watermedia monoprints, Mike Harada's paintings and Kandi Everett's works in a variety of mediums add the stuff of dreams, texture, and irony to the exhibit.

Pegge Hopper's "Not Just a Pretty Face" with charcoal, acrylic, mirrors and "Go Figure your Figure" with mirror and acrylic on Gator foam reveal a change from her more popular work.

After 15 years in this gallery space and so many years of successful commercial work, Hopper wants to explore more compelling images that put a "fire in the belly," she said. "It has to do with the energy that is in a piece of work."