For Britos, it's all about his paintings
By David C. Farmer
Special to The Advertiser
Painter, writer and multimedia artist Peter Britos' exhibition of about 30 paintings created over the past 15 years poses an intriguing question to thoughtful viewers: What is the function of an artist's signature on a work of art?
Britos answers: It has no place or function in his work, because "the focus for my art should ultimately be on the work itself not the artist." This is certainly a counterview to the sentiment expressed, for example, in the Rolling Stones lyric, "it's the singer, not the song."
Peter Britos' "Haloa Naka," inks and watercolors executed on a roll of brown butcher, is part of the "Night of the Dream of the Moon" exhibit.
And yet ironically in the printed program that accompanies the exhibition, he cannot escape the imperative of biography that naturally attracts almost every audience of the arts, and especially where the artist's background, experiences and recent media attention are as rich and intriguing as his.
He describes himself as a product "of a family of carpenters, musicians and artists, meteorologists, mathematicians and teachers."
His own achievements are impressive by any standard, and especially for a young man of his age.
He was born in Honolulu and raised on the North Shore, Tokyo, Panama, Florida, Turkey and Germany — all places where his Hawaiian-Chinese-Filipino-Portuguese father worked as a meteorologist and musician.
His mother — of Danish-Irish-Creole descent — was a mathematician and painter, born in St. Croix, Virgin Islands.
He acknowledges her as a seminal influence on his painting: "Thanks to my mother, I have been painting all my life."
Paintings by Peter Britos Cafe Che Pasta Bishop Square 1001 Bishop St., Suite 108 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, through Sept. 30
He holds impressive academic credentials, including a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Hawai'i, Attestations in French literature from Switzerland, and a master's of fine arts in screenwriting and a doctorate in critical studies, the latter two from the University of Southern California.
'Night of the Dream of the Moon'
From 1991 to 2003, he was affiliated with USC's School of Cinema-Television, receiving numerous academic and industry awards. He also worked as a producer and media-consultant in Hollywood, producing multimedia projects and directing television and radio productions.
In the mid-1990s — before returning to Los Angeles to produce late-night television for Quincy Jones and David Salzman — he was the first media manager for the world's first all-digital newsroom in Honolulu.
Britos has served on the faculties of many prestigious institutions, including the UH School of Communications, where he currently teaches. He lectures on such diverse subjects as global media, Oceanic film and American television and video history.
He also is an accomplished tennis player, bodysurfer and a former alpine logger, and was Hawai'i's first world-class racquetball pro and an international squash competitor.
He was lured away from USC by the newly launched UH film school to serve as its director and chief academic officer, where he was charged with writing its strategic direction, philosophy and academic program and other documents to help finance the school and legitimize its approval as a formal entity.
Having accomplished his design of the school's six interdisciplinary track format, he recently was removed amid a flurry of media speculation and student protest.
But what of the paintings themselves?
Primary, out-of-the-tube colors; fractured portraits and repeated faces; female nudes; primitive, swirling hot and cold interior land and seascapes; an iconic Madonna, a haunting child in blue, a George Grosz-inspired image of a Hollywood party.
Some, created in the past five years, are new and have never been shown. Others — done in California and Switzerland —have never been shown here.
He enjoys working with the fluid media of watercolor and oils, and many of his pieces are mixed media with inks, acrylics and oils on paper, canvas and wood.
He wants the work to speak for itself. It is about the moment, solving problems in an interesting way, not about developing a certain style.
Painting serves as a balance to his professional life, a window into understanding patterns, how things move in a frame.
He has been painting all his life and has hundreds of paintings to his credit. He has shown his work in Switzerland and West Los Angeles, and some of his work can be seen in USA Network's "The Hugh Hefner Story."
Hundreds more of his paintings and the family's multi-generational collection of paintings, drawings and prints were destroyed in 1988 in floods at his Puna family home, a period when he was working as a logger and studying French literature in Switzerland.
Some of his paintings, such as "Haloa Naka," "Ikon" and "Portrait of Miriam," are quite large. Others are scaled to a more intimate size.
Britos retells the story from the Kumulipo behind "Haloa Naka," inks and watercolors executed on a roll of brown butcher paper given to him by a friend.
Sky father Wakea and earth mother Papahanaumoku ("Papa who births islands") mated and gave birth to the Hawaiian islands.
The couple also produced the goddess Ho'ohokukalani ("maker of the stars in the skies").
Later, Wakea had a sacred ni'aupi'o mating with his own daughter Ho'ohokukalani, but their baby Haloa-Naka ("quivering-long stalk") was deformed and stillborn. They buried him outside their home, and from that spot grew kalo, the taro plant.
Wakea and Ho'ohokukalani mated again and produced a healthy child also named Haloa, the first Hawaiian, from whom all other Hawaiians are descended.
Kalo is therefore the elder brother of human beings, and an eternal familial relationship exists between earth, man and the gods.
In Britos' exhibition, designed to introduce his work to his family and friends on O'ahu, the mythic theme resonates with profound and engaging energy.
