Dropping In, Drawing a Bead + Dreaming of Nature
Dropping In: Recent Work by Tom Lieber
Tom Lieber’s abstract works include forms which are spade-like in shape, reminiscent of a human torso or the silhouette of a tree mushrooming toward sunlight. This strong “V” shape parallels Lieber’s interest in the act of dropping and rebounding in the way a surfer cascades down, through, and back up the barrel of a wave. The idea of dropping in, as into deeper meditation, into a wave, into a creative vision, is a strong force in Lieber’s paintings. The physical experience of dropping offers an intense thrill, but also a sense of peace produced by the feeling of weightlessness. When Lieber paints, he attempts to occupy a mental space akin to dropping wherein he’s both in the heart of the energy but also detached, enabling him the freedom and confidence to respond to the balance of his mark-making as he works.
Lieber’s gestural paintings and monotypes employ a brushstroke that can be both sharp and hard-edged as well as delicate and soft. He works intuitively and applies multiple layers of paint to create his compositions, each piece passing through various configurations before settling into its final state. “I can’t consciously go to a painting in progress and fix it. I have to just go in there, mix up some paint, try something, start working, let the whole thing encompass me, then sort of give in to it . . . once I go in, and add one mark, all the relationships can change.”
Internationally recognized artist Tom Lieber divides his time between Kauai and Los Angeles. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, his paintings and prints are in the collections of the Guggenheim and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, and Tate Gallery, London, among others.
Wink, 2015
Oil on canvas
88 x 72 inches
Spatz, 2015
Oil on canvas
80 x 70 inches
Blue Spade, 2015
Oil on canvas
60 x 48 inches
Long Drop, 2015
Oil on canvas
72 x 30 inches
Blue Fall, 2015
Oil on canvas
20 x 16 inches
Grey/Red/Black, 2015
Oil on canvas
60 x 48 inches
Candle #55, 2015
Oil on canvas
10 x 10 inches
Candle #50, 2015
Oil on canvas
12 x 12 inches
Small Black Pot III, 2015
Oil on canvas
12 x 12 inches
Small Black Pot IV, 2015
Oil on canvas
10 x 10 inches
Untitled I, 2015
Untitled II, 2015
Untitled III, 2015
Monotypes
48 x 35 ½ inches
Untitled IV, 2015
Untitled V, 2015
Untitled VI, 2015
Untitled VII, 2015
Untitled VIII, 2015
Untitled IX, 2015
Monotypes
34 x 24 inches
Drawing a Bead: Recent Sculpture by George Woollard
“Drawing a bead” means to take aim, and George Woollard’s target is sculpture. “Sculptures are composed, they are put together one step at a time like any other art form. It is composition that interests me. I look at the materials and try to discern what they can offer with the least amount of alteration. I want the work to be 50 percent material-based and 50 percent artist-based. Together, we compose the work,” says the Oahu artist.
Woollard harvests the Lychee wood used for his sculptures from his property in the back of Palolo Valley and shapes the logs by carving with gas and electric chainsaws. “In making these pieces, I have tried to find a balance between the forces of expansion and contraction. The wood has grown from the inside out, its whole nature is one of expansion. When I work on the wood, I am carving it away, contracting. There is a point where the two forces come into balance; it is both the tree growing and me creating . . . Finding that tipping point is how I visualize the process.” The smooth surfaces are created by covering the carved wood with multiple layers of cashew lacquer which are then sanded and polished to a velvety finish. The resulting works are whimsical, and exist on the borderline between functional object and pure aesthetic form. The artist states: “These works are meant to be playful and entertaining. Play is experimental and consequently results in more inventive and original work . . . I see my work as belonging to the cracks. It is neither wood nor ceramic, not realistic or abstract. I think and plan but work intuitively. I believe it is just as important to know what something is not, as to know what something is.”
Originally from Cape Cod, Massachusettes, Honolulu-based artist George Woollard’s paintings, prints, and sculptures have been exhibited in galleries and museums in Europe, Korea and Japan as well as spaces in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Honolulu. His work can be found in the collections of the Honolulu Museum of Art, The Hawai'i State Art Museum, The Persis Collection, The University of Hawai'i, the Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Queens Hospital, Kaiser Foundation, HMSA, The Four Seasons Resort, Biblioteque Nationale des Art, Paris, France, and numerous private collections.
Stone Cloud 5
10 ½ x 9 ½ x 4 inches
Stone Cloud 6
10 ½ x 6 x 4 inches
Stone Cloud 7
9 ½ x 8 x 3 inches
Stone Cloud 8
5 ½ x 9 x 3 inches
Stone Cloud 9
3 ½ x 6 ½ x 3 inches
Stone Cloud 10
6 x 8 x 3 inches
Stone Cloud 11
6 ½ x 6 x 3 inches
Stone Cloud 12
8 ¼ x 8 x 2 ½ inches
Stone Cloud 14
9 ½ x 9 x 2 inches
Stone Cloud 18
6 x 8 x 3 inches
Stone Cloud 19
5 ½ x 6 ½ x 2 inches
Top Off
18 x 9 x 6 inches
Tip Top
23 ¼ x 7 x 6 ½ inches
Point Up
19 x 13 x 6 inches
Floater
12 x 13 ½ x 3 ½ inches
Place Holder
10 x 8 ½ x 2 ½ inches
B-1
4 ½ x 2 x 2 inches
B-2
4 x 4 x 1 ½ inches
B-3
3 x 4 x 4 inches
B-5
2 x 2 x 2 inches
B-6
3 x 3 ½ x 4 inches
Demure
13 x 4 x 2 ½ inches
Kind-hearted
12 x 6 x 2 ½ inches
High-minded
14 x 4 ½ x 3
Piggy-back
19 x 9 ½ x 3 inches
Dolman
9 x 9 ½ x 3 inches
Advantage
6 x 8 x 2 inches
Megalith
9 x 9 x 3 inches
Orange Top #1
8 x 6 x 3
Orange Top #2
8 x 5 x 3
Little Yellow
12 x 9 ½ x 9 ½ inches
Big Orange
15 x 12 x 10 inches
Big Red
17 x 20 x 20 inches
Little Green
13 x 11 x 11 inches
Big Green
13 ½ x 11 x 10 inches
Envoy
64 ½ x 62 x 13 inches
Longboat
29 x 46 x 7 inches
Power Up
38 ½ x 39 x 7 inches
Giddyup
48 ½ x 32 x 7 inches
All are cashew lacquer on wood, 2015
Dreaming of Nature: Works by Hannah Day, Nelson Flack, Carl Jennings and Chenta Laury
Hannah Day
The only way out of the forest is through the trees, but I will always keep these memories of the grove. This newly hollowed reality catches, making the air rise from my lungs. Of course, for me, not caring is always the result of caring too much. And so I am left to consider: all that is real and all that is imagined.
Currently a Masters of Fine Arts in printmaking candidate at the University of Hawai'i Manoa, Hannah Day received her BA in Visual Arts from the University of San Diego. She has exhibited her work in galleries in California including Aquas and Black House Galleries in Petaluma, and Sacred Heart Gallery in San Diego. She also teaches art to children and works on illustrations for commissioned projects.
We can be light even with the weight we carry, 2015
Etching on paper
15 x 7; 23 x 13 inches framed
The marriage between heaven and hell is earth, 2015
Cut etching on paper
12 x 24 inches unframed
I would walk the end of earth, just to set you free, 2014
Etching on paper
24 x 24; 31 x 31 inches framed
The only way out of the forest is through the trees, 2014
Etching and aquatint on paper
12 x 24; 20 x 27 inches framed
But we will keep these memories of the grove, 2015
Cut etchings (29 layers) on paper
Approx. 6 x 13 x 12 inches
Everything in the world is broken. Nothing but silence remains, 2015
Etching on paper
36 x 24 inches unframed
Is hell nothing more than the tortured chambers of our hearts?, 2015
Cut etching on paper (hung over a second etching on paper)
36 x 24 inches unframed
And so we are left to consider: all that is real and all that is imagined, 2015
Etching on paper
24 x 36; 28 x 40 inches framed
Nelson Flack
The prints in this exhibition were selected from film transparencies exposed in the secluded wetlands of Kanaha Pond State Wildlife Sanctuary, Kahului, Maui, and the pools of Iao Stream, Wailuku, Hawai‘i. I photographed these images intuitively with an interest in recording momentary sequences of light and undocumented archeological sites. These exposures attempt to optimize the technical qualities of film-based photography as a medium of expression. Wide angle lenses were utilized to allow depth of field, and corner-to-corner image detail. Using a weighty tripod to allow camera stillness along with a technique of sequential exposure, the images combine intense reflected light and direct daylight. The presentation files are collaged in Photoshop software.
Maui artist Nelson Flack’s works are in the collections of the Hawai'i State Art Museum, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, and Bloomsburg State University, Louisiana. He was featured in the Contemporary Museum Biennial of Hawaii Artists in 2000, and in Hawaii Art Now at the Honolulu Museum of Art in 2011.
2011 03 24 No.39, 2011
Ink jet print from Kodachrome transparency
2014 02 22 No.17, 2014
2014 02 22 No.16, 2014
2014 03 22 No.12, 2014
2014 03 30 No.10 The Red Spot, 2014
2014 03 30 No.16, 2014
2014 03 30 No.15, 2014
2014 02 24 No.4, 2014
All are ink jet prints from Fujichrome Velvia transparency, unless otherwise noted
All are image: 24 x 16; frame: 32 x 24 inches
Carl Jennings
Rooted in the European visionary tradition, these works emphasize the poetic in relation to the trees, woods and forests. Here, the imagination is used as a mode of access and world-making, in the hopes of inspiring a deeper connection with the natural world. Alternatively, as works of artifice, they also point to the many ways in which we ‘image’ nature, and the consequences of such – including the responsibilities we have as caretakers.
Carl Jennings was born in Liverpool, England, and received his BA in Fine Art from San Francisco State University and his MFA in painting from Falmouth College of Art, UK. He is currently an Associate Professor of painting and drawing at Kapiolani Community College. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited extensively in Europe and Hawai'i.
Starhouse, 2011
Oil on canvas
The Trees II, 2011
Oil on paper
Collection of Mary and Nick Hubbard
The Forest of Splendour (Zohar), 2012
Oil on paper
Ivan’s Childhood (Tarkovsky), 2012
Oil on paper
In the Grove, 2012
Oil on paper
Sleeping Trees I, 20122
Ink and acrylic on paper
By the Water, 2011
Ink and acrylic on paper
Settlement I, 2010
Ink and acrylic on paper
Chenta Laury
This body of work represents the dynamic forms found in geodes and the magnified organic patterning of various corals –created entirely out of wool. I find both of these subjects visually compelling and I am drawn to the contrast in their inner and outer forms—rough stone to crystal; living coral to its skeleton. The growth processes of these organisms is also conceptually of interest to me as they inform and relate to my artistic process of representing them.
All of these pieces have been hand-felted. Felting is a process involving the densification of matter, which it shares with the geological process through which geodes are create—water and pressure being primary elements in each.
As tiny organisms corals build extraordinary colonies, which, not unlike the greatest human architectural structures, take years to “build”. They have repetitive patterning and exquisite coloration. The gorgeous intricacy of different species of coral is visible to the naked eye but, when magnified, the extent of nature’s rhythms, laws, and beauty can more readily be witnessed.
Finally, geodes and corals share a common vocabulary of geometric and organic form. My hope is to bring to light the language, delicacy, beauty and simultaneous strength of nature—as both a subject and medium for art.
Originally from O'ahu, Chenta Laury has lived and studied visual art in the Midwest and on the East and West coasts of the United States. She currently lives and teaches on Maui, offering classes and workshops to students of all ages. Working in a range of mediums, including watercolors, ink, and a variety of natural fibers, she holds an undergraduate degree in studio art and art history from Oberlin College, a Masters in Arts in Education from Harvard University, and a Certificate in Applied Arts from the Fiber Crafts Studio in Chestnut Ridge, NY.
Anemone, 2014
24 x 24 inches
Mushroom Coral, 2013
20 x 20 inches
Coral #1, 2013
17 x 17 inches
Coral #2, 2013
17 x 17 inches
Coral #3, 2013
17 x 17 inches
Coral #7, 2013
17 x 17 inches
Geode - Olivine Slice, 2013
18 x 18 inches
Geode - Solar Slice, 2013
14 x 14 inches
Geode - Red, 2013
6-inch diameter
Geode - Olivine, 2013
12-inch diameter
Geode - Solar, 2013
10-inch diameter
Geode Hollow - Turquoise, 2013
36-inch diameter