Begin the year with the insights of established artists

By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Critic

•	'Flagrante Delicto: Photographs by Gaye Chan' 'Recent Work by David Kuraoka' 'Recent Work by Mary Mitsuda' Through Feb. 4 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Fridays The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center 999 Bishop St.

Gaye Chan's role as provocateur has never been stronger than in this showing of photographs. Chan, a professor of photography in the Art Department at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa who came here from Hong Kong in 1969, poses questions about our personal and collective memories in a series of black-and-white photographs that have been developed in color.

The definition of "flagrante delicto," according to the Random House Dictionary, is "while the crime is being committed, lit., while the crime is blazing." And everything about the red-tinted and golden glow of these photographs is blazing, as in "specter 1-3." Ever so slightly menacing, they seem to jerk us out of our comfort zone into a state of psychological investigation. What are we really viewing in "storm 1 & 2" — the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the rescue of tourists? The juxtaposition of these photographs invents a new story, a new hi-story.

It is a jolt worth experiencing — inspiring a new awareness about what we don't see in the images we see.

Chan offers 41 found images from her infinite collection, an archaeological-photographic view of life in Hawai'i from the 1940s to 1970s. She is fascinated by what we choose to photograph and repeats some of the images to increase their impact. She uses the darkroom techniques known as burning and dodging to adjust the light and dark, shift the colors, evoke heat and flames.

"The whole show is really about reflection," says Chan, "on what kind of images were made and why they were made." Photography only records certain images. "We end up with a skewed history of what really happened," she says. "Our imagination is so colonized by what we've seen that we participate in this mythology of what is important to remember. It is one thing to be lied to; it is another thing to repeat it. Not only are we not clear about how we are told untruths, but we actually participate in the myth-making that continues to oppress us."

In the series "vadium vivum 1-10," 16th- to 18th-century Christian paintings (relating to rewards for saintly behavior) have been outlined by a pin-poking technique through photographs from an insurance company's recording of awards given for good salesmanship. The effect is profound as the repetition of small holes glittering white through the photographic paper set up a mysterious union of hands connecting in agreement.

"I would like my work to evoke curiosity in the viewer," says Chan, "Things are not the way they seem and things don't have to be the way they are. The world becomes more exciting and beautiful when you are curious, even though it is sometimes horrifying. Life is rich. Art is supposed to have us look at and remind us of our sense of wonder about the world."

Beyond what we see, it is important to question our memory and trust our intuition.

Recent work, David Kuraoka

"I was trying to make beer mugs for my friends, and by the time I could make them good enough, I was already involved in the art form," says David Kuraoka.

Not a beer drinker but a full-time professor of ceramics at San Francisco State University, he has been teaching for 30 years and was recently granted the equivalent of a doctorate in ceramics. He maintains two ceramics studios, one in San Francisco and one on Kaua'i (where he lives for five months of the year), and he works constantly.

After looking at Kuraoka's work, it is hard to believe that his entry into this art form was so prosaic. Pit-fired earthenware vessels and tiles, bronzes and elegantly formed, celadon-glazed porcelain vessels display the wide range of his talents, from primitive to glassy.

A long table of celadon-glazed porcelain pots is displayed in front of the light-green-tinted windows —Êa stunning sight.

"Celadon is an old and unforgiving glaze," says Kuraoka. "It is very pure and very hard to fake. I lose a lot of pots in the process. If the atmosphere is off, the glaze turns a yellow-brown color."

Kuraoka also lost a lot of tiles in the pit-firing process. "Pit-firing flat tiles had not been done before," says Kuraoka. "I cracked 600 off the bat. But the ones that were coming out good kept leading me on." In a series of experiments that took 16 firings, one after the other, he discovered how to make it work, keeping meticulous notes. The results were worth the effort. "Stripe" and "6 Tiles" present a series of tiles, each a different color composition, with flares of calligraphic black lines, auras of white and rich copper-colored backgrounds with hints of green.

Because smoke is a byproduct, Kuraoka's love of pit firing has gotten him run out of town on many occasions. "Sometimes I would get going and just wait for the fire marshal to come," he says, "and then move on." Now he has a permanent set-up and uses gas and electric kilns in both locations as well.

In the bronze "Kilauea 2," he created a pit-fired appearance by "painting" on the finish. He actually brought pit-fired pieces into the foundry to imitate the color markings on metal.

Kuraoka travels back and forth with his ceramics. He ships crated leather-hard pieces from his studio on Kaua'i to his studio in California. Distance is not a deterrent, and with Kuraoka, neither is the notion of impossibility.

Recent work, Mary Mitsuda

Born in Honolulu in 1949, Mary Mitsuda produces abstract paintings and naturalistic monotypes that reflect a world suspended in time with nature as its source.

"It is a meditation, a path," says Mitsuda. "Visually, the eye leads the body. I think of this work as a garden. There are different areas where the eye can wander, like in nature itself." There are suggestions of sticks, dead leaves on a path, flowers, sky, roots, plants, and horizons. And in the paintings there is room for the eye to pause.

It is this pause that is important to Mitsuda. Her paintings suggest a moment of silence in the way she has placed contrasting bands of built up colors with vertical drips alongside flatter bands of color, as in "Earth and Sky."

Are we looking out or in? Is it a view from a distance or is it up against our noses?

The two large acrylic-on-canvas paintings, "Acquifer" and "Falling Flowers," could be a diptych. "They were the most obvious step away from the other paintings," says Mitsuda. "This is the first time I really let the flower part emerge. I was doing monochromatic paintings at the time, and I would lay these yellow flowers on the painting. There was something about the way they looked." Yellow appears in many of Mitsuda's paintings as drips and sources of light. "These paintings suggest a transition," she says. "They affect us psychologically and induce a certain state, like when you are in the presence of rain, ice melting and fog."

The "Ti" leaf series of monotypes celebrates transition in the many beautiful colors and shapes of dying ti leaves. Monotype printing is a new medium for Mitsuda, one that she is enjoying.

A tapestry of elements woven together balances the work meaningfully as a whole. "Nature can be a tough place, inspiring as well," says Mitsuda. "It doesn't ask your permission to be the way it is, you exist in it."

The State Foundation for Culture and the Arts purchased works from all three artists.