'Dream' works range from a wild pig with attitude to balanced body parts

By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Critic

•	"The Dream Encyclopedia" New works in clay and paper by 3 figurative artists 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, through Sept. 26 Hawai'i Pacific University Art Gallery, 45-045 Kamehameha Highway 544-0287

In planning for the show, Yawata, Rowley and Lum came upon the title in an excursion to HPU's library. Serendipitously pulled from a shelf, they selected a "Dream Encyclopedia" and the collaboration began.

Twelve of Yawata's art works — a drawing, lithograph and monotypes — represent associations across material and spiritual worlds. Impressions of domestic involvements, distractions, family and friends fill many of her two-dimensional works.

"Pot Luck," a large mixed-media drawing of guests surrounding and hovering over a table, overlaps black dancing silhouettes on blue plates and random figure sketches alongside more detailed figures. A wild pig with attitude glares from the lower right hand corner.

"Pot lucks can be chaotic," Yawata says. "But even with all the crazy stuff happening, I notice a formality and a structure. Particular scenes stand out in my mind that could have been wonderful plays between people. And every party has to have a wild pig — it is the quintessential anything, anybody."

Yawata's monotype, "Kuan Yin Express-Hwy. 63," is a light-hearted image of two gray female nudes on the highway heading in opposite directions on a mission of compassion. "The Man in the Gray Flannel Landscape" is a more serious image of a nude male figure running away from a sinister-looking building. "Dreaming on the Lava," a water-based monoprint, is a wonderful balance of elements. In it, a yellow ochre-colored female nude sleeps on a blue platform above swirls of lava and wild pigs, surrounded by the illuminated night sky. "It is reflective of the power of nature," Yawata says, "personal freedom and dreams. As well as all the odd and unusual juxtapositions you have when you are dreaming. Our home on the Big Island, near the lava flow, is very exposed. It's like camping out in the jungle. We have wild dreams there."

Rowley won first place for her three-dimensional entry in the Japanese Chamber of Commerce 25th anniversary exhibit (reviewed Aug. 24). Here, she amuses us with more of her winning earthenware hearts and fish-skin series.

"Fishing for Love" illustrates Rowley's ability to distill a concept to its simplest form, maintain its potency and infuse it with her quirky sense of humor. This grouping of hearts appears to fly, swim and wiggle on the wall.

"I love the process of discovery I've found in working with fish skins," Rowley says. "My work is autobiographical. I live in Hawai'i, yet I am not Hawaiian and don't want to borrow Hawaiian icons. The fish infuse my work with a sense of place." Rowley is fascinated with glazes, surface designs and textures. Her stoneware/ earthenware "Looking for Lychee in all the Wrong Places," incorporates the lava-like glazes she has developed. Cradled in a 10-footed, udder-like vessel with a bumpy and bubbly turquoise glaze are numerous russet-colored lychee skins that look like the real thing.

The porcelain figures in the grouping "Balancing Act," Su/Mo" and "Non-Traditional Girl" give reference to the sometimes-scary images we envision in our dreams.

Body parts stitched together with nails a la Frankenstein and three heads sitting atop another head and shoulders expose the eerier side of our nocturnal consciousness.

"In dreams, the symbols don't match our literal meanings," Rowley says. "... When I am working on a piece with a specific story, my subconscious will continue to bring things up to my conscious mind after the piece is finished. It helps me to work things out." Leaving behind a long career in the business world, Rowley has taken a leap of faith in the art world-and has landed where she belongs. More of her work will be on display at the Kaimuki gallery workspace, in October.

Lum's clay cats, dogs, swan and jizo-like (Japanese shrine) figures exemplify a purity of consciousness and youthfulness. Her forms evoke a sense of playful tenderness, unfretted by the stresses of adulthood. "Strippy in the Moon" is inspired by a childhood memory and a love of Japanese folk tales. Strippy was her brother's toy stuffed rabbit. The rabbit was lost and the brother was unable to sleep without it. Lum's grandmother took her and her brother outside and showed them the rabbit in the moon. The next day, Strippy was found in the mango tree.

Additional jizo-themed figures, "Lovebirds," "Hatchlings," "Lily" and "Kiss" also have stories of their own. "Journey" is a figure of a large blue-gray swan with its wings folded, head and neck resting on its back. "It is a death journey piece," Lum says. "There is a fetus curled up underneath where the head bends over."

Lum used a scoring tool to get the texture on the swan, and eight colors of blues and greens. She does what she calls a "primitive glazing technique," flicking transparent glaze over the other glaze with a toothbrush which, when fired, adds a metallic shine.

The combination of the art works and their evocative titles in this exhibit are a feast for additional dialogues. Lum's symbols of innocence, Rowley's bizarre dream associations and Yawata's juxtapositions of spiritual and material worlds give us our subconscious framed and on a pedestal — easier to decipher and enjoy than some of our own dreams.