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State Art Museum takes abstract slant | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper

Posted on: Friday, September 17, 2004

State Art Museum takes abstract slant

Advertiser Staff

'Inner Scapes'
  • 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, through Feb. 27
  • Free; opens today
  • Hawai'i State Art Museum
  • 586-0900
  • www.hawaii.gov/sfca
The Hawai'i State Art Museum opens a new fall exhibition, "Inner Scapes," today in the Diamond Head Gallery, featuring abstract paintings and sculptures from the Art in Public Places Collection of the Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.

Abstract art was one of the phenomena of the 20th century, reflecting the era's ambiguity and emphasis on personal expression. During and after World War II, European artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali, Piet Mondrian and Hans Hofmann relocated to the United States, settling in New York City.

These modern artists influenced American painters and sculptors to discover new means of expression.

Byron Goto, "Stalk Seed," oil on canvas, 1959

In the 1940s and 1950s, armed with a new vision, American artists such as Jackson Pollock, William De Kooning, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and Helen Frankenthaler explored a freer, more personal way of seeing in the collective movement that became known as abstract expressionism. Hawai'i artists were influenced by these American and European trends.

Many Hawai'i-based artists such as Isami Doi, Tetsuo Ochikubo, Tadashi Sato, Harry Tsuchidana and Reuben Tam spent time in New York City from the 1930s through the 1960s. These local artists later returned home having been deeply influenced with the language of abstraction.

"Inner Scapes" traces these influences and trends from a regional perspective, bringing Hawai'i abstract traditions up to the present. The exhibition features 40 artists.
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