ART REVIEW
One artist simplifies, another celebrates, the human form

By Victoria Gail-White

"Hula Kahiko Wahine" is a watercolor on handmade paper by Cindy Conklin. Photos by Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

Ginny Walden carved "Soulmates" in Saltillo cedar.

Daily News: Recent Work by Mari Sakamoto Through October 6 The Contemporary Museum Café 11:30- 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays Noon- 2:30 p.m. Sundays 2411 Makiki Heights Drive 526-1322 Kahiko Hou by Cindy Conklin Body and Soul by Ginny Walden The Gallery at Ward Centre Through June 28 Open: 10-9 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays 10-5 p.m. Sundays 597-8034

The simplicity and repetition of elements in her work is engaging. They appear foreign. Why do we do these specific activities together? Are we participating in some form of societal ritual of which we are not even aware?

The lineup of babies isolated from their mothers and fathers in "Newborn Ward" is a chilling, pastel-colored composition. "Brokers" scramble at a crowded stock exchange, while "Graduates" line up one by one in their graduation caps and robes. The "Support Group" sits in a circle of chairs.

We know these activities and what they involve. They are part of our daily lives; but can we take a moment to question their significance? Sakamoto gives us the opportunity to pause and reflect.

There is something poignant in these deceptively simple works. They both celebrate and ridicule our existence.

Sakamoto's faceless subjects become insignificant massed together. Even the "Fireworks" are more exciting than the spectators.

"Kahiko Hou" is an affirmation of the powerful effect ancient hula can have on an artist — even a haole artist from Detroit.

When Cindy Conklin saw Auntie Nona Beamer's hula troupe perform at 'Iolani Palace, she was moved to tears. In a dream three years ago, she saw the finished piece of art that evolved into the birth of her "Kahiko" series.

Conklin's earth-toned watercolor paintings on handmade paper at The Gallery at Ward Centre are the third in this series.

"What has changed about this series is the presentation," she said. "It is the first time that I tried to get the full value of the painting by painting to the edge and then floating the painting on the mat."

The design elements of pattern —both botanical and geometric — as well as petroglyphs, dance through her art work, enriched by under painting and consecutive layers of thin color. The predominantly earthy-brown silhouettes, such as "Hula Kahiko Wahine," is also joined by an outrigger canoe in "Wa'a."

Conklin paints from photographs she takes at live hula performances. Although she is not a hula dancer, she is profoundly moved by the art. Hula is "an important part of the truth of this place," she writes in her artist statement.

In diverging from her earlier scratchboard works, Conklin believes that she is reaching more people now.

It must be divine intervention working overtime, because the "Goddess Series" of Ginny Walden's sculptures came from a dream she had before she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This and the "Soul Series" represent her journey to wellness.

A self-taught stone carver for more than 30 years, Walden prefers the direct style of carving. Practitioners of this style, used by many North American Indians and other cultures, believe it is best not to impose one's will on the material, but to sense the shape that wants to emerge from the wood or stone itself.

This way of working is connected to Walden's path of recovery through an ancient Chinese healing art.

Chi Lel Qigong is a form of exercise that includes special breathing, movement, loving intention and group energy. In healing herself, Walden decided to heal others and has been teaching Chi Lel Qigong for four years.

"Everything is chi," she said. "Everything has being. We are in a chi soup. The heart has a brain. The stomach has a brain. Everything is connected."

Walden's carving in wood, "Tree Soul," is a good example of "listening to the wood," she said. "The navel just appeared where it should be, it wasn't planned."

The soul series "expresses the mystery of being a spirit within a human body," she wrote in her artist statement. "The eternal part is the watcher. We see ourselves as separate and miss that we are always connected to what we cannot see, our spirit."

She also carved white Italian alabaster in the luminous "Reincarnation" and steatite, a harder form of soapstone, in "Blessing Goddess" — a manifestation of her dream vision. The four breasts in the piece signify multiplying breast cells and her need to nurture and mother herself.

"Creativity is the highest form of healing," she wrote, "since it operates at the nonverbal level."

The stone in Walden's sculptures is imported because, she said, "there is no carvable stone in Hawai'i, the stone isn't old enough."

"Bodies die like a cocoon that falls away and the soul continues," Walden wrote.

Her journey and her expression of that journey may prove inspirational to anyone in need of healing.