Wisdom revealed in works of emerging artists

By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Critic

This year's Bachelor of Fine Arts show is lively and seasoned with new energy.

Unlike last year's show, it is not overshadowed by the tragedies of 9/11. The work of these 41 graduates rises from the ashes of that disaster.

"Ian and Cassidy," by Tiffany Noelle Graham, charcoal and graphite on paper University of Hawai'i at Manoa Art Gallery

The art programs represented in this exhibit include painting, printmaking, fiber, glass, photography, graphic design, ceramics, sculpture and intermedia. Although faculty members advised students for this exhibit, the students did the work — from the invitation to the installation — and made final decisions. Every student was required to be on at least one exhibition committee.

Painting professor Pia Stern says this was the first year that the faculty voted to include the show as part of the BFA graduating requirements.

"It is a controversial issue," says Stern, "because sometimes the students' progress can be short-circuited. They can spend more time with developing product than with their own progress."

But the BFA exhibit is good training in understanding what is involved in becoming a professional artist, as Professor Suzanne Wolfe says.

Among students I talked to, Fred Bannan is fascinated with old animal traps and their simple, efficient mechanisms. In "D.L.A.D.," two forged-iron traps (that could double as musical instruments if a bow were handy) bring to mind our more primitive instincts, coupled with the graceful tension of taut tree branches.

"Solace," made of glass, steel, copper and yarn, "is mainly about my search for home, comfort and security," says student Ali Chapin. "These things are superficial and can easily be taken away, broken or fall apart." She welded the steel bed frame that holds the "quilt" of large blown glass roundels that she fused and slumped in a kiln and attached with copper wire and strips of knitted yarn.

"In that context, good, bad, right and wrong exist on the same level and coincide in a harmony which doesn't exist in many places," he says of the irony that exists in Las Vegas.

Helena-Agnieszka De Gielgud was once a sociologist, and her abstract figurative acrylic paintings are inspired by her perception of how bizarre humans really are.

Robin Shugars believes that humor is important in her realistic-expressionistic oil paintings of dogs.

Anuradha Shankaran's trust in life, unfolding in a positive way, gives her oil painting, "Ecstasy Transformation" a spiritual dimension.

Takuma Yoshida's colorful and carefully crafted abstract oil paintings originated from close-up photographs he took of fabric and other collaborative paintings.

Tiffany Peterson, responsible for the exhibit's public relations, is clear that she wants to teach art. Her 16-panel charcoal and graphite on paper, titled "Ian and Cassidy," is a detailed figurative drawing of two superimposed portraits.

The six white porcelain telephone-receiver inspired series of sculptures by Fatima Gomez-Hoang:rocks have a tender, poetic quality. "The idea came to me while I was having a long-distance relationship with my girlfriend," says Gomez-Hoang:rocks.

Clockwise from left,"Just Standing Still," by Jerry L. Haugen, oil on canvas; "Vegas Trinity," by Daniel Fry, oil on canvas; "Solace," by Ali Chapin, glass, steel, copper and yarn University of Hawai'i at Manoa Art Gallery

"People have to work together and work for the greater good," says Howe. "But when I really analyze it, it came down to finding balance within yourself. From that you can go out and make a bigger difference."

Pualana Lemelle's "the harder the skins, the better they will keep" — made of 14-foot panels of silk, glass, wood and sepia-toned photo Xerox transfers — is a remarkable room-sized dress installation that you can walk or lay under. Found branches with thorns of sculpted glass poke through the panels of sewn white silk with enlarged photographic images of babies, girls and feminine body parts.

"I am exploring femininity and fragility" she writes in her artist statement, "in relationship to nature and society in a society filled with plastic and silicone manipulations. Beauty is found in the unique imperfections and scars of individuals."

Lemelle's use of dress metaphors is prevalent in many of her photographic works. This piece has a more commanding presence. "I tried to follow that interior feeling," she says. However monstrous this enormous dress concept is, it is worthy of our serious reflection.

Will Lichty, chairman of the exhibit committee, focused his photography on tourists — what they see and what we allow them to see. "In Typical Stereo Views of Hawai'i," he constructed an entire black room fitted with a light box installation with chromogenic stereo prints and 3-D viewers. He includes instructions for using the 3-D viewers.

"The images are two separate images shot with two different cameras," he says, "each slightly different." The room suggests a theater. However, due to the mundane subject matter, it is transformed into a theater of the absurd.

Shun Tsukazaki says his clay sculpture series, "Progressions: Patience is a Virtue" is "still evolving. They are all textured with different parts of a piece of wood." With graceful form and a sense of spontaneity and movement, his earthy clay pieces capture the pleated appearance of Japanese shibori fabrics.

Vanessa Oshiro and Michael Sarpy, both graphic-design students, co-chaired the group that designed the invitations, the entry graphics, the posters and the delightful catalog.

Graphic-design professor Anne Bush said the students showed a "sophistication of thought" in their designs.

Oshiro's installation, titled "Shifting Texts," constructed of photocopied paper and padding compound, is an interactive piece based on the Internet phenomenon of "fan fiction" — creative writing that uses pre-existing characters from television, movies or other fiction.

The viewer can tear off pieces of paper with words relating to writing fan fiction in different type styles.

"The pages are continually changing," says Oshiro, "because the viewer changes the piece continually by taking pages."

Sarpy's "Labelwhore" is a retail-store-like installation with a mixed-media wardrobe on hangers and shelves, labeled and cataloged. It is a humorous look at "exploring that area of our culture that is obsessed with labels and the retail business of youth culture," he says. "I am part of it, too." The tagged clothes and accessories in the catalog and on display belong to Sarpy and represent the popular labels that illustrate the ludicrous notion that Sarpy is what he wears.

Some students took an entire semester to finish their work. Their statements in the exhibit catalog are poignant but not preachy and reveal the issues with which the artists are wrestling.

Brooke Miyamoto writes, "I have to fight the desire to make the infinite finite. I have realized that until I can be honest with who I am and brave enough to present that person, I will never be able to create a piece that feels truly effortless."

This beautiful installation is a noteworthy improvement over last year's BFA exhibit. The focus on less work with more variety and quality is more engaging.

The separate rooms-within-the-gallery installations have a delightful intimacy and the video setups are more inviting to watch.

If you fast-flip the pages of the exhibition catalog, the small black and white photographs show a motion picture of hands folding a piece of paper that construct and launch a paper airplane.

"Art is an act of faith to begin with," Stern says. "It is a creative act. Implicit is some kind of faith that things will go on."

This group of graduating students certainly inspires that faith.