Complex Horizons
learning and creating on the island of Hawai’i
Sunset on the Big Island
In October 2024, I had the privilege of jurying the 2024 Pacific States Biennial North American Juried Print Exhibition at the University of Hawai’i, Hilo. During this time, I also worked as a visiting artist in the university’s printmaking department.
Colors and plates, visiting artist project at UH Hilo
As I prepared to spend time again this year in another region of Oceania, I read the latest book by Hampton Sides, The Wide Wide Sea, which chronicles the last voyage of the British navigator Captain Cook. This final trip focused on finding the Northern Passage, north of Alaska, and ended in a flurry of unsettling events that culminated in a violent battle on Hawai’i, in which Cook was killed in 1779.
This historically accurate account by Sides, researched from firsthand sources, explains much about Cook's life and times and the places he visited. It also explores the philosophies and purposes behind Cook’s extensive explorations of the Pacific during the 18th century. Ultimately, Cook’s unparalleled sailing and mapping skills paved the way for other, far less scrupulous, visitors and invaders to the Pacific Islands he chronicled.
Nafea Faa Ipoipo? (When Will You Marry?) Gaugin, 1892, Oil on canvas, 40 × 30 1/2 in
It is a complicated history, and one I spent most of 2024 learning about. Earlier that year, the National Gallery of Art in Australia mounted the exhibition Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao.
While displaying a groundbreaking collection of Paul Gaugin’s works gathered for the first time in Australia, perhaps more importantly, this exhibition did not sugarcoat the controversial aspects of Gaugin’s involvement in Polynesia. The exhibition’s podcast series, The Gaugin Dilemma, hosted by Samoan-Australian journalist Sosefina Fuamoli, tracks this history compellingly and compassionately.
All this to say, I was prepared for a layered experience as an artist working in Hawai’i. It was my first time on the Big Island, so one of the first things I did was to visit the statue of King Kamehameha the Great in Kapa’au. Kamehameha was a valorous and celebrated warrior who fought in the Battle of Kealakekua Bay in 1779, in which Captain Cook was killed.
Through a career involving warfare, political partnership, and strategic trade with foreign interests, Kamehameha unified the Hawaiian Islands into one political entity for the first time. This was an essential and impactful achievement during a season of great change in the Oceania region.
Dried festival lei at the base of the Statue of King Kamehameha I (Kapa’au, Hawaii)
Statue of Kamehameha I (Kapa’au, Hawaii)
The grand vistas a traveler experiences on the Island of Hawai’i, in tandem with endless micro-endemic details throughout the landscape, provide a backdrop for deep contemplation and connection to the environment.
This island inherently creates, forces, and sustains significant change in tandem with strength and beauty. Documenting the moments I found within this story was essential to my work there. These included incredible landscapes, a welcoming community, clear-air breezes, mixed-season flora, and colors from deep within the earth and sky.
While working at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo, I began a new body of work inspired by my time on the Big Island. I appreciate the assistance and accommodation that Professor Jonathan Goebel and his printmaking students lent to my project there.
with printmaking students and faculty at University of Hawai’i at Hilo