Cordes Hoffman - Honolulu Academy of Art

Cordes Hoffman (current MA student) has been an intern in the Asian Art department at the Honolulu Academy of Art. She is responsible for the selection of artwork featured in the current rotation of Chinese paintings in HAA's Gallery 16. Hoffman also wrote the explanatory text that accompanies the exhibition.

Grace Moon, The L Word, and Velvetpark

After completing her BFA at UHM in 1991, Grace Moon (formerly Loftus) went on to attain a MFA at Pratt Institute. She has been in LGBT media since 2002. First operating her own lesbian print magazine, followed by being The L Word website's managing editor. In 2004 Moon founded a lesbian arts and culture publication called Velvetpark.

Meanwhile she continues to make art and show her work in New York City and elsewhere. Moon's personal website.

Deb Aoki at eBay

Deb Aoki (BFA 1989) is currently working at eBay in the "user experience design" group. She is mostly a writer but also often use the design training she received at UHM to create visual diagrams of user flows (assisting users in finding relevant information). Aoki writes,

"Compared to some of the other 'content strategists' in my team -- my fluency in "design-speak" allows me to work with user interface designers and graphic designers much more seamlessly, and much more collaboratively, than just writing words to fill a space on a page. I do a lot of sketching, and in this world, it's a rare and useful skill."

Aoki has also worked at Microsoft / MSN, Citysearch, KaiserPermanente.com and Art.com. She has found that her art training has served her well to THINK differently than the average MBA, and come up with new customer-centric solutions.

Meanwhile, or all the while, Aoki continues to work in comics.

Culminating MA lecture by Gary Liu

THE MAKING OF UNOFFICIAL SPACE: Negotiating Controlled Spaces in Contemporary Chinese Art
The culminating MA lecture by Gary Liu (current MA student)

Thursday, May 7 @ 3pm, Art Building Room 101

Cassandra Jackson (formerly Locke) with The Joinery

Cassandra Jackson (formerly Locke) - BFA alum, is currently in Portland working with The Joinery, a company known for its handmade green home furniture. Cassandra wears many hats there - as a furniture design consultant in addition to contributing to The Joinery's graphic design, PR & community education.

Maika'i Tubbs at Town, Chinatown Boardroom, and elsewhere

VIGNETTE Maika‘i Tubbs (BFA 2002) transforms plastic utensils
into whimsical creations
now showing at Town Restaurant, 3435 Wai‘alae Avenue (on the corner of 9th and Wai‘alae Avenues) through June 6.

Maika‘i Tubbs’ Vignette series provides commentary on the overgrowth of plastic in our environment. Inspired by the Woodrose vine, he uses ordinary plastic forks, spoons and knives to create playful sculptures of foliage. His new work also features paintings that mimic the vine’s lethal beauty.

Maika‘i Tubbs is from Kapahulu on the island of O‘ahu. A 1996 graduate of Kamehameha Schools, he received his Bachelors of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 2002. Though drawing and painting were his first loves, he eventually developed an interest in repurposing everyday objects to expose their undiscovered potential. His penchant for collecting obsolete items has helped him focus on making the irrelevant relevant by telling new stories with objects rich in their own histories. From toy soldiers and syringes to packing tape and glue, Tubbs continues to find new ways to explore different materials by breaking down their original intent.

Upcoming shows include HUA at Chinatown Boardroom, 1160 Nu‘uanu Avenue, from May 5 - 30 and Visual Stories: Contemporary Native Hawaiian Art and Craft at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, Schaefer International Gallery, on the island of Maui from September 13 - October 24.

BOOM: The New Deal - BFA Graphic Design Portfolio Show

The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa senior BFA design students invite you to
BOOM: The New Deal
BFA Graphic Design Portfolio Show, a risk-free, high-reward experience for all.
Be there to see their best design work and give them feedback and advice.

Thursday, May 7, 2009 - 6:30pm - 8:30pm
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Art Building Auditorium, Room 132

DESIGNERS: Ricky Chan • Joshua Dyogi • Resha Hanson • Sakino Hikichi • Takuya Kamibayashi • Annie Nguyen • Bao Nguyen • Angelica Rabang • Gary Saito • Michelle Saoit • Aki Takebayashi • Hiromi Zimmerman

For more information on this event, visit http://www.hawaii.edu/art/portfolio/ or email aigauhm@gmail.com.

Alums on KGMB 9 News

Quest Kennelly (BFA 2000) is current Artistic Director at Bluewater Multimedia, a company started by Mike Varley and Ben Leung. Mike was also a member of this department though did not receive a degree from us. Another fellow crew member is alum Kristy Masada (BA 2004). Their work is featured on KGMB 9 News.

Solo Exhibition by current MFA student Ryan Greenly

Solo Exhibition by current MFA student Ryan Greenly, featuring an installation of mixed media works and videos. The show runs for the month of May, 2009. Opening reception on Friday, May 1, 5-8pm at Ong King Gallery - on King and River St.

Kazuki Takizawa featured in Honolulu Star Bulletin Blog

Kazuki Takizawa (current BFA student) featured in Honolulu Star Bulletin Blog about his senior honors project, "Solarium".

Jennifer Rubin at Bethel Street Gallery

Jennifer Rubin (current MFA) is included in the
3rd annual Hawaii Artists Exhibition at
Bethel Street Gallery
May 1- May 28, 2009
Opening on First Friday May 1

Faculty Scott Groeniger at HPU Art Gallery

An exhibition of recent works entitled The Architecture of Change: Exploring the Past Within the Present by Scott Groeniger and Hawkins Biggins will open at the HPU Art Gallery on Sunday, May 3, and will run until Friday, July 17, 2009. see HonWeekly review and Honolulu Star Bulletin review.

Scott Groeniger’s newest digital images are abstract textures photographed in China. The entire body of images weaves together images of fragments and pieces from the present and the past. The exhibition ultimately suggests a future which is both full of challenges as well as hope, as China transitions into an international superpower. Scott is overlaying and combining photographic images together from the present tense, with images gathered from the many important cultural, archeological, and historical sites, temples, art museums, and ancient cities in China. He is currently living in Honolulu and has traveled to China many times, making it his home away from home.

The Hawai‘i Pacific University Art Gallery is located on HPU’s windward Hawai‘i Loa campus, 45-045 Kamehameha Highway, in Kaneohe. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Admission is free and the public is invited. For more information call: 236-5853.

3 alums - Eli Baxter, Beth Uryase, and Joseph Wilson at thirtyninehotel

Eli Baxter (MFA alum 2006), Beth Uryase (MFA alum 2008), and Joseph Wilson (BFA alum 2008) transform the common fan blade into objets d’art

Residential Rendition: Left Out to Dry, a new gallery exhibition featuring the work of three artists who call Hawai‘i home: Eli Baxter, Beth Uryase, and Joseph Wilson. This collaborative team—all three are graduates of the Art and Art History Department at the University of Hawai‘i–Manoa—entirely reconsider form and function in an obsessive lab-like study-cum-retrofuturist greenhouse. Showcasing their collective expertise and experimentations, the three artists combine ceramics, fiber, printmaking, and sculpture in this installation created specifically for thirtyninehotel.

Where: thirtyninehotel, 39 Hotel Street, second floor
When: May 1-June 27, 2009
Gallery hours: 4 pm-2am Tuesdays-Saturdays
Opening reception: Friday, May 1, 6–9 PM
General info: 808.599.2552

John Szostak presenting a paper the "Otago Conference on Japanese Modernism"

John Szostak (Assistant Professor of Japanese Art History) will be presenting a paper entitled "Otago Conference on Japanese Modernism" at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand (August 14-16, 2009). The conference is to allow for exchanges between scholars who write about the nature of Japanese (and other) modernisms using cross-disciplinary, multidisciplinary and transnational approaches.

Szostak's paper, "Foul is Fair: Abject Beauties, Taishō-era Nihonga and the Psychology of the Grotesque," will discuss Japanese painters of the 1910s-1920s who featured decadent and/or grotesque images of women. He argues that the origins of this trend can be partly found in increased popular interest in insanity as a treatable medical condition. A refereed volume of selected conference papers will be edited by the conference organizers for publication.

Daisuke Murata - curator at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa

Daisuke Murata (MA 2003) has been a curator at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, for about six years. He is a rising star in the study and exhibition of contemporary art in Japan. Curatorial projects include "Bare All" works by Ron Mueck in 2008, and "Real Utopia" in 2006.

Murata's interview with artist Kimura Taiyo (one of the artists featured in "Real Utopia" can be downloaded from this page.

Mark Perry at Alexander Gallery, Oregon

Mark Perry (BFA alum) and Rex Silvernail
Two person exhibition at Alexander Gallery
Niemeyer Center for Communication Arts
April 6-May 8, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 9, 3-6pm
gallery hours 9am-5pm Mon-Fri

Thomas Wasson and Lewis Goldstein - Teaching positions

Lewis Goldstein (BFA 1971, MFA 1979) is currently teach art full time at Barstow Community College in Barstow, California.


Thomas Wasson (BFA 2001, MFA 2005) is a Full-Time faculty member of Digital Media at Clackamas Community College, Oregon City, Oregon. Wasson's Favorite Quote: “You can’t make clean prints in a dirty studio” –Charles Cohan

Lian Lederman and Alyssa Olivier wins awards

Lian Lederman and Alyssa Olivier (both current MFA candidates) are recipients of the 2009 College of Arts and Sciences Student Research Awards. These awards were established to help fund special scholarly activities of significant educational value not available through regular coursework.

Daven Hee and Cory Lum at Louis Pohl Gallery

Daven Hee and Cory Lum (both alums) at Louis Pohl Gallery, 1111 Nuuanu Ave, Honolulu.
March 27 - April 25, 2009

After Daven Hee received his BFA from UHM he attained his Masters from The Australian National University in Canberra. Hee's work is in the collection of The Honolulu Academy of Arts, the National Institute of the Arts, Canberra, Australia, and the Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Hee currently teaches at the Mid-Pacific Institute.

Cory Lum is a ceramic artist as well as a professional photographer. His photographs have appeared in the The New York Times, Corbis, The International Herald Tribune, Readers Digest, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more.

Wunsze "Sylvie" Lee and Sandy Ng

MA art history graduate, Wunsze (Sylvia) Lee, currently working on her PhD at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), has been awarded a major international visiting fellowship at the Harvard-Yenching Institute for the next year. Lee was nominated by CUHK and competed with hundreds of international applicants.

Another MA art history graduate, Sandy Ng, went on to get her Ph.D. from the prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. Ng has been appointed to the faculty of the School of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
where she teaches Cultural Studies in Design.

Cheers!

Artists of Hawai'i 2009

At least 6 of the 64 artists featured in the upcoming Artists of Hawai'i 2009 juried exhibition are members of our department.

Honolulu Academy of Arts. Exhibition dates: May 14-August 16, 2009.
Opening reception May 13, 2009, 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Juror: Laura Hoptman, Senior Curator, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY.



Klaus Knoll (faculty) & his partner Cella will be showing a print from their Inside/Out series of rooms turned camera obscura. Reflecting the impact of globalization and cultural fusion on personal circumstance, Inside Out deals with displacement, liminality and cultural identity in the lives of Klaus Knoll and Cella, both neither refugees nor migrants or expatriats, rootless all the same. Like many of their projects, Inside Out shares an attention to the built environment, specifically to temporary
architecture and ideas about the use of space.

Russell Sunabe (alum) wins the John Young Award.

Also in the exhibition are Scott Groeniger (faculty), Linda Kane (faculty and alum), Lian Lederman (current MFA) and Allison Uttley (current MFA).

Gaye Chan presenting at Asian American Studies Conference

Gaye Chan (faculty) will be presenting "Eating In Public : Against the New Hegemony of Blood and Soil" at the upcoming Asian American Association Conference as part of a panel on art and pedagogy.

Presentation Abstract:
The idea – and increasingly the practice – of the commons is once again invigorating political theory, popular culture and popular imagination. In Chan's presentation, She will examine “Eating in Public,” a collaborative project she co-founded in 2003 by planting food without permission on land awkwardly designated as both private (under the ownership of the Bishop Estate, an indigenous Hawaiian Trust) and by the state as 'public'. A key element of “Eating in Public” is the eschewing of modernist identities of nationhood, ‘race’ and binary gender roles and an imagining of a common ground sustained through shared practice rather than abstract and hierarchical affiliations.

Using “Eating in Public” as the vantage point, Chan will analyze our contemporary usage of Anarchist and Marxist politics coupled with the deployment of contemporary art practices as tactics in disrupting assumptions by both the right and the left.

alums with Jumping Fleas - ha ha ha

Check out Jumping Flea at Chinatown Boardroom. Artists do their things on blank ukulele, including several of our alums and current students (Heather Brown, Bradley Capello, Jessi Moore - maybe more, who knows any more I can't keep up.) Opens Wednesday April 1, open for 1st Friday April, & on view thru the 25th.