When observing the world I imagine it as an abstract. When I create art, visual parallels of my experience occur in my work.
I work in painting and hybrid traditional/digital prints.
For my recent paintings I begin by drawing an abstract structure with lines. Currently my lines are mostly organic and only sometimes straight or angular. I try to stay within the boundaries of the picture plane only sometimes allowing the lines to leave the edge. (Lately my compositions have left the edge of the picture plane more.) When I paint I slowly pull out various shapes in the drawings, sometimes combining two or more to form a new shape. When I paint I’m also trying to create different textures for each shape or area with brushstrokes and abstract textures formed by dripping paint and blotting it. I end the painting or print when it feels right. I generally recognize something, an animal, object, or situation.
In creating digital prints I use a variety of techniques. At times I add shapes and textures from my paintings and drawings. Sometimes I paint and/or draw digitally. I also may combine all these methods in one print. I only make small adjustments in the computer like hue, value, saturation, opacity/transparancy, composition, and scale.
My titles have transformed through time. They did come from digital file names when I photographed my work. I liked the way these file names conceptually related to vision and were also abstract. Recently I have found the need to give them more specific titles in addition to give a further entrance into my work. I have also used a few titles translated into Hawaiian. Most recently I have chosen to keep the titles more abstract so the viewer can decide what they see themselves.
Around 2012 I saw a large painting by Leon Golub at the Honolulu Museum. I also purchased a book on Richard Tuttle from Honolulu Museum. Both artists used grommets in different ways to hang unstretched canvas. This has intrigued me for years and introduced me to a way of making large paintings without stretchers.
I’ve enjoyed all the lectures and events (Ku I Ka Mana Series) recently at the Honolulu Museum related to Kapiolani Langraf’s `Au`a.
I was very impressed with the Hawai’i Triennial 2025. I especially was intrigued with Emily Karaka’s unstretched canvases at the Bishop Museum. I liked the way she hung them with black round circles. I don’t know exactly how they were hung as they were too high to see. I also realized after I painted it that my Night Search on Kilauea, 2025 must have been subconsciously influenced by her work at the Bishop Museum.
I also liked the large shaped paintings on flax by Hayv Kahraman in Hawai’i Triennial 2025 at the Honolulu Museum.
I particularly like the Satoru Abe painting Skyward from 1962 that was in the exhibition Satoru Abe: Reaching for the Sun at the Honolulu Museum. I am drawn to the colors and shapes he used in this painting.