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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, July 24, 2005

Small spaces reward viewers

BY David C. Farmer
Special to The Advertiser

"The Lone Phoenix Faces the Sun," by James T. Kuroda, acrylic on canvas, 9 by 12 inches, reflects the artist's observations, meditation and reworking of ideas within the spirit of tai chi.

Photos by Loren K.D. Farmer

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DEBBIE YOUNG: RECENT PAINTINGS AND WORKS ON PAPER

"Collaborations and Continuations": Sculptural Vessels by Michael Lee and Special Guest Artist Hans Weissflog 10 a.m.-5 p.m. today and 10 a.m.-9 p.m. tomorrow through Thursday. Ends Thursday The Gallery at Ward Centre 1200 Ala Moana Blvd. 597-8034 www.artgalleryhawaii.com
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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"Square Root," by Debbie Young, acrylic on panel, part of an exhibition with two fellow artists in the Gallery at Ward Centre.
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DEBBIE YOUNG: RECENT PAINTINGS AND WORKS ON PAPER

"Collaborations and Continuations": Sculptural Vessels by Michael Lee and Special Guest Artist Hans Weissflog 10 a.m.-5 p.m. today and 10 a.m.-9 p.m. tomorrow through Thursday. Ends Thursday The Gallery at Ward Centre 1200 Ala Moana Blvd. 597-8034 www.artgalleryhawaii.com
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Making art in Honolulu certainly has its challenges, but the richness of the environment — natural, social and cultural — offers a rare quality of stimulation and inspiration.

For the marketing of art, however, the challenges still outweigh the opportunities.

Like the cramped spaces that typify O'ahu parking conditions, the reality of the gallery business is small spaces, high rents and short-term existence supported as a labor of love.

Two galleries with shows now on display prove both the rule and its exception.


BIBELOT GALLERY

The exhibition space and shop bibelot gallery opened in 1997. It serves as a place to lend support to Hawai'i's art and artists.

Partners Paul Sakai and Tom Tierney have committed themselves to mounting an impressive 10 shows a year to maximize the opportunities for exposure for local artists.

James T. Kuroda's current show of recent paintings — with Haunani Bush's exhibition falling hard on its heels — illustrates the gallery's philosophy.

Although the tiny space on the second floor above the Kaimuki Post Office is far from ideal, the gallery serves as an intimate and friendly place where both artist and viewer can find rewards.

Kuroda's work is imbued with the spirit of tai chi, part of a long history of movement and exercise systems associated with Taoism.

The principles of yielding, softness, centeredness, slowness, balance, suppleness and rootedness are all elements of Taoist philosophy that tai chi has drawn upon in its understanding of movement, both in relation to health and also in its martial applications.

The Chinese characters for tai chi chuan can be translated as the "supreme ultimate force," and for Kuroda, both painting and tai chi — he's been doing both for the past 30 years — are paths to spiritual realization.

Tai chi, as it is practiced in the West today, can perhaps best be thought of as a moving form of yoga and meditation combined.

There are a number of so-called forms or sets that consist of a sequence of movements.

Many of these movements were derived from the martial arts (and perhaps even more an-cestrally than that, from the natural movements of animals and birds), although the way they are performed in tai chi is slow, soft and graceful, with smooth and even transitions between them.

One can see these influences of softness and effortlessness in Kuroda's paintings, just as in the names of certain movements in the tai chi form, such as Cloud Hands, Wind Rolls the Lotus Leaves and Brush Dust Against the Wind.

Moreover, the contemplation and appreciation of nature, central features of Taoist thought, are reflected in the genesis of many tai-chi movements such as Grasp Sparrow's Tail, Repulse Monkey and White Snake Sticks Out its Tongue.

Kuroda's titles — such as "the lone phoenix faces the sun," the great roc spreads its wings" and "fair lady works the shuttles" — speak to the same sensibility.

Visually, the work is multilayered and abstract, the result of many hours, weeks, even years of looking, meditating and reworking.

Opposites are courted and explored to create ultimate harmony.

Like Taoist magic diagrams, which were regarded as potent talismans having great command over spiritual forces, Kuroda's imagery is illusive and suggestive, white paint freely used to veil and reveal, invoking the passage of time and the healing of wounds.

Since symbolism was a potent force in Taoist thinking, one might be tempted to puzzle out secret messages embedded in his canvasses.

Here again, tai chi — with its aim of fostering a calm and tranquil mind, focused on the precise execution of these exercises — provides a clue, assisted by Kuroda's own characterization of his work and process.

"A painting is never what I first envisioned it to be. I consider myself an old-fashioned modernist painter. I am a formal painter in that I express myself utilizing the formal elements of art."

Also a gifted exhibit specialist with the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Kuroda's fine sense of design, color and mood are richly in evidence in these works.

And infused throughout the work is an engaging sense of whimsy and almost Paul Klee-like innocence, coupled with a disarming self-deprecation that invites the viewer to drop all pretension and embrace the human animal.

Like the practice of tai chi, the meditative nature of Kuroda's art is not only calming and relaxing for the artist, it also offers a similarly refreshing experience to the attentive viewer, in and of itself.


GALLERY AT WARD CENTRE

Over at The Gallery at Ward Centre, a small cooperative gallery that has managed to survive since 1988, works by 15 diverse Hawai'i artists are on display, featuring paintings, prints, wood-turning, blown glass, ceramics, silver and gold jewelry and woven and strung beads.

In the case of this gallery, however, the artists' exposure is enhanced not only by being in a well-frequented shopping mall, but also by a well-designed Web site that reaches beyond our shores to a worldwide market, a visionary step in the forward march of connecting Hawai'i's culture and arts with a world tourism market.

Among its talented members are photorealist Doug Young, watercolorists Helen Iaea and Roger Whitlock, and ceramicist Steve Martin.

Currently on display are works by two member artists: recent paintings by Debbie Young and wood sculptural vessels by Michael Lee, with some collaborative pieces with the German wood worker Hans Weissflog.

Born on O'ahu, Lee specializes in production pieces as well as one-of-a-kind sculptural wooden vessels.

His exquisitely carved pieces — both his individual pieces and his fascinating collaborative works with Weissflog — exude a pulsating sense of living organisms, achieved through a masterful control of gesture and movement.

Lee takes from nature inspiration as to texture, form and motion, creating pieces with a life of their own.

He enjoys the freedom of being self-employed, of being able to surf or ride his dirt bike in the mountains when he pleases, keeping his energy level high and mind open when the studio work begins: art and play in perfect creative balance.

He aspires to create a "piece that will speak through its own visual and tactile language."

Young is the newest member of the co-op, and her work suggests an artist just emerging in the process of finding her own voice.

Having taken truly the long way home from her early childhood experiences at the Hono-lulu Academy of Arts and the formative influences of her father, John Young, she exiled herself from art for many years before reconnecting to her birth-right.

Now, with a deeply rich sense of color and suggestive form, her work — including acrylic paintings and mixed-media monotypes — holds the promise of future greatness, informed by resonating life experiences from which her fully developed work will surely blossom.

David C. Farmer holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and drawing and a master's in Asian and Pacific art history from the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.