Featured Show - Viewpoints Gallery, Maui Hawaii

Viewpoints Featured Show

Suzy Papanikolas
NANAKULI (Look at Me)
July 24th through August 20th, 2003

Hula Ipu

Hula Glow

A VISIT WITH SUZY PAPANIKOLAS
Surrounded by her future show still in the flux of creativity, I enter Suzy Papanikolas' exciting studio. A former greenhouse, it is now filled with paintings, unfinished canvases, gessoed canvases, paints and painting materials, plants, birds twittering in a large cage.

The artist paints as we talk. She remarks that "these figures are caught in a moment of time that I think is meaningful. I am saying 'look at me' being the voice of the people in the paintings -- intense in the moment, not conscious of others as they dance. I am saying 'look at these beautiful people enjoying themselves so much'".

Chanter with Kukui Leaf Heiepo

Tahitian Torso

The largest of the paintings is 4 X 8 feet and depicts Keamoku Kapu, a kahuna from Lahaina, surrounded by his ohana at Mokuula, a sacred place. Other portraits, composed in Suzy's cropped style include two paintings of Hana youths from the Taro Festival, dancers from the Merrie Monarch Festival, Keamoku's brother, a woman in the Kapu halau as seen at the Canoe Festival. Also included are two paintings resulting from the artist's recent trip to Costa Rica. One, quite large, is of some boys on the beach at Tarcoles, lying on a pile of old tire, as they wait for the tide to come in so they can go fishing. The painting contrasts with its exotic old baroque frame, found by Suzy at a Von Tempsky estate sale. Another painting is of a family lying on the sand in a tangled heap.

Lovely Hula Hands

Kahiko Light

Besides these unusual paintings, the artist is showing a large woodblock print, about two and a half by five feet, hand printed on layers of rice paper (one layer colored deep orange by fermented pomegranate juice), and the whole artwork suspended and weighted by heavy bamboo rods. Imposingly large and extremely tactile, the woodblock print contrasts with the smooth photo-realistic portraits surrounding me. When I express surprise at the difference between techniques, the artist brings out two more large woodblocks of roughly the same size. she tells me that she carves them at the Canoe Festival to honor the different canoe builders who come from different parts of the world. The woodblocks are exciting: they include canoe shapes from places like Tahiti, New Zealand and even Vancouver Island. The names of canoe carving groups appear directly on the woodblock together with the individual canoe images. The woodblocks are used to print cloth pareos by hand. Suzy makes these pareos for the visiting carvers at the Festivals, and is known as "the woman who makes the pareos." Suzy tells met that she will demonstrate her fabric printing techniques, in connection with her upcoming show, and will have finished products ready for purchase.

She remarks that she likes to show woodblocks with Polynesian decorative design relating to the fabric designs a seen in her paintings. She likes working on the woodblocks because they take her away from sheer realism. She says that colors and shapes in her paintings are all extremely reminiscent of the South Pacific.

Margaret Bedell, July 2003

To see or purchase these or other works in this show, please contact Viewpoints Gallery.
For email, phone, or fax, please click here!