ART REVIEW
Couple's artistry demonstrates commitment, connection

By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Reviewer

•	His and Hers: 2002 Doug and Sharon Britt, Paintings and Fiber Through Aug. 16 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays bibelot gallery 738-0368

For this show, Doug switched to two-dimensional paintings that offer a marooned view of life here in Hawai'i, complete with life buoys, boats, hula dancers, palm trees and canoes. Sharon, who has been weaving since childhood, created three-dimensional woven fiber structures from materials she gathered on the beach.

"Living here is a large commitment," said Doug, "being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the farthest body of land from any other land mass, isolates us and compels us to use larger modes of transportation to travel." Many of his 22 acrylic and oil paintings were made in a smaller format to accommodate bibelot gallery's limited wall space.

There is humor in both the paintings and the fiber works with reference to old and new icons. "Reeling In," one of Doug's three larger pieces (oil on canvas) shows a hula dancer reeling in an ocean liner with a fishing rod. In "New Hope," a life buoy is painted around a world with a palm tree on top. This painting could double as a gourmet dessert.

The horizon lines in Doug's works are arched "to show distance," he said. "Whenever I am surfing, I see the horizon line that way. I like it." This perspective and his homemade frames of distressed woods give his brightly colored paintings vintage characteristics, especially in "Distant Refuge" (acrylic on canvas). His open style of applying paint illustrates his informal way of approaching the canvas.

"I work fast," said Doug. "I let the painting take its own form, accept what's there and try not to change it."

Sharon's heiau-looking constructions use dark root-hair fibers from tree trunks; lighter limpet, puka and Ni'ihau shells; and fish scales, bamboo, Norfolk pine sticks and coconut pieces for contrast. Woven with waxed linen thread into vessel and torso shapes, they are evocative of burial wrappings from South America or storage containers from Africa.

"I pull the thread so tight when I weave," said Sharon, "that I can only weave for short periods of time. It hurts my hands."

These individual altars are made from the vast number of collected objects that fill Sharon's studio space. Her beach walks and hikes can be an intense harvesting of eyes, hair and mouths for her figures as in "Torso with Ni'ihau shells, hau bark hair, hapu'u fern eyes."

My favorites were "Basket with bamboo sticks stitched on, ironwood base" for its integration of an elongated basket shape perfectly fitted to a weathered ironwood base, and "Breadfruit sheathing sewn on top root hairs," which turns a small basket on its side (like a bird's nest). This fiber sculpture is pleasing from any angle it is turned on its blocked driftwood base.

This year, the gallery the Britts own, Ola's in Hanalei, Kaua'i, will celebrate its 20th year in business. They have, in "His and Hers: 2002," and in their commitment to the arts, provided evidence that love can be sustained and nourished by the creative process.

•	Improbable New Paintings by Noe Tanigawa Through Aug. 2 11 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays Café Che Pasta, 1001 Bishop St. Validated parking after 4 p.m.

"The fact that you have to heat it and use it hot was its demise after it was invented in Greece 2,000 years ago," Tanigawa said. "Tempera and oil came later. Encaustic fell out of favor until the 17th century, when artists needed a mural medium that would be impervious to the weather. Encaustic was cumbersome back then. They had to use wood to stoke the fires to keep it liquid. (But) wax repels everything."

Tanigawa sometimes applies as many as 15 layers of translucent color on a painting. That is a lot of hot strokes. Some of her art supplies are arcane: pigments from Italy, waxes from Europe and the Big Island, and rabbit glue. Her work has a trapunto quality — sensuous and sculptural. (Trapunto is a quilting technique used to outline and emboss a design with stitches and pads of cotton.)

Her new paintings and charcoal drawings on vellum were inspired by trying to create a vision she had. "I wanted to turn people around a little," she said. "I know they usually come here in the middle of the day. They've been at work and might be tired. I wanted to lift their heads a bit."

"First Orbs I, II, and III" were the foundation paintings for the show. Carved colored orbs float in long white-textured backgrounds and look as if they could spin right off the painting into the restaurant. Check to be sure they aren't hiding in your napkin!

The series of paintings called "Intuitions" ("You're Beautiful," "Honesty," "Enjoy," "Let Go," "Imagine") have white built-up, caption-like shapes (which represent psychological space for Tanigawa) in fields of layered azure, butter, cobalt and burnt sienna. "I wanted these pieces to be batteries that people could take home and recharge with," she said. "Let their eyes go for a hike around the curves."

Different colors of beeswax and paraffin dictate some of Tanigawa's color choices. In referring to her "aphorism" series, Tanigawa noted that the background color was a warm honey-toned beeswax. The black hands and shapes in these works are entitled, "Listen," "Be Generous," "Your Choice" and "Fly."

Bees produce different colored beeswax and sometimes matching these colors is difficult — unless they are from the same batch of bees. Tanigawa enjoys the wonderfully sweet smell of melting beeswax and working with nontoxic materials.

She painted the striking "Night Lotus I and II" because of the internationally metaphysical and symbolic connotations of the flower. In this, her first use of a black background, the white lotus petals literally lift off the canvas.

Tanigawa still is amazed to find herself a working artist (she is also a wife and mother of two). "Every single painting went through a point where I really doubted it," she said. "But the layers added to its mana and gave it meaning."

There is a kind of magic at work here. "Things that are so improbable are the things that make us feel that magic can happen," Tanigawa said. "It is a way of living that you learn about by making art. It has a lot to do with following your intuition, adhering to your vision and trusting."

At $120-$650, the works are very reasonably priced for originals.