Hawaii Island Art Alliance and Wailoa Center are proud to announce two exhibits at Wailoa Center during the month of October.
Upstairs in the Main Gallery is the third annual Plein Aire Perspectives, and downstairs in the Fountain Gallery and Education Lanai, is Teu Le Va, an exhibit of siapo and painted works by Regina Meredith Fitiao.
Plein Aire Perspectives brings the outside in, with works created outside in the “plein,” or open, air.
Juror Stan Charminski invited this year’s artists to make him feel the place where their works were created. This year’s artists don’t disappoint; visitors can feel the warmth of the setting sun in South Kona, the shady respite under trees at Honuapo, and the dappled light on the roads of lower Puna.
Charminski describes his own fascination with landscapes as a challenge to “carefully select just a single slice of this ever changing reality, then combine the elements of composition, color, line, and texture to create the desired emotional impact.”
Plein Aire Perspectives invites the viewer to step into another moment and out into the open air.
Open House is from 2 to 6 p.m. on Oct. 7, with live music from Anthropology from 4 to 6 p.m.
Teu Le Va, Sharing and Nurturing Relational Space, is an exhibit of works by fourth generation siapo maker and painter Regina “Reggie” Meredith Fitiao.
In works commissioned by the Asia Pacific Institute for Gender-Based Violence, Meredith explores power and control as well as the fragility and strength of human relationships in a haunting series of mixed media.
Meredith’s work includes both paintings and siapo (also known throughout the Pacific as tapa), a traditional fine cloth of Samoa made from the bark of the mulberry tree and using natural dyes and ancestral motifs.
In addition to the pieces created for this project, Meredith offers a journal of her process and her struggle to respond to issues of domestic violence, suffering, healing and change through her art and through a Samoan cultural lens.
Opening will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. on Oct. 6 at Wailoa Center.
Wailoa Center will also be open from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 8 for a “Meet the Artist” public discussion with Reggie Meredith Fitiao.
Teu Le Va is co-sponsored by the Haw-CC HUM Dept, the County of Hawaii, Hawaii State Parks, the Grassroots Community Development Group, the Hawaii’s People’s Fund, the Zonta Club of Hilo, the American Samoa Coaalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and the Brigham Young University Pacific Islands Studies Program.
Wailoa Center is under the Division of State Parks, the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Wailoa Center is free and open to the public during the exhibit, Monday through Friday from 9 to 4 p.m.