Palolo Valley's artists show their best

By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Critic

•	'I Love Palolo' Through June 15 Noon to 6 p.m., Thursdays through Sundays workspace 3624 Wai'alae Ave., Suite 201

Many of the accomplished artists (who also are teachers) are couples, yet their work is distinctly individualistic. This is evident in the added bonus of being able to view their work beside that of their partners in the exhibit.

Hanae Uechi Mills' breaks from her printmaking to paint "Magnolia 22" and "Magnolia 23" (mixed media on paper) — heavily layered renditions of the many magnolia trees in the neighborhood. Rick Mills' "Palolo Parfait" (blown glass) series of houses is a light-hearted interpretation of the many Palolo homes tented for termites. For the series, he used an Italian blown-glass technique known as enclamo to achieve striped layers of color. The 2000-degree molten glass was blown in a wooden mold. The act of making the form of the house destroys the wood. This process plays into the concept of the piece. Rick Mills also is featured on the cover of the recent issue of American Style magazine.

Jinja Kim's "Untitled" (mixed media on paper) works are a provocative series of three oversized postcards that were stamped and sent to the workspace gallery through the mail. In one, the words "they were passionately in love" float beside a man sitting in a chair picking his nose while the figure of a woman hunches over in the foreground. In a series of three "Lidded Vessel" (acrylic/oil on panel), George Woollard loosely paints ginger-jar forms over grids that provide tension to the otherwise spontaneous brush strokes.

Mary Mitsuda's large, dark painting titled "Buddha's Birthday" (acrylic on panel) is a severe contrast to Jesse Christensen's "Soul Ascending" and "Nude Descending." His photographs appear as if they were aura images of the energy emitted from a body-soft flowing color with eerie echoes of form.

Katherine Love's paintings "Francis and Peter" and "Venus/Jesus" (mixed media on wood) are reminiscent of religious Italian masterworks, except with a new twist in their composition. "Untitled" (lithograph, woodcut and etching) by Charles Cohan integrates various rectangular blocks of patterns on a dark surface with a lighter central branch — golden and glowing with the buds of spring.

Laura Smith's "Cape for Flying," "Acacia Cape II" and "Cape of Rebirth" (monoprint, woodcut) include another important aspect of Palolo in their concept-chickens. Her sense of humor surfaces by including chicken feet, wings and egg designs into classic circular cape shapes.

And to further lighten up the entire show and tie it all together, Wendy Kim Messier, in "Lines," has erratically strung lines of black rope close to the ceiling (reminiscent of telephone and power lines) filled with wired black paper birds. The birds are distinctive and their shadows are delightful.