Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 7, Number 1, 1 January 1990 — Queen Emma Gallery features art of Charles N. Dickson [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Queen Emma Gallery features art of Charles N. Dickson

The Queen's Medical Center honors its founder, Queen Emma, eaeh year by featuring works by Native Hawaiian artists in its Queen Emma Gallery. The celebration is being held in January (Queen Emma's birth month) and February under the theme "Homage to Queen Emma and Manamana." The theme refers both to the name of the medical center site and to the diverse showing of loeal art in the Queen Emma Gallery. Featured in January are recent works by Honolulu-born painter, Charles Naniwaialeale Dickson, a land title attorney for the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation. Works by Herman Clark Jr. will be fea'tured in February. For Dickson, his art transports him from the intricacies of law "to another space, somewhere between dream and consciousness." "My art is spiritual, it is the stuff of my soul, my eommunion with the eternal part of life. Georgia 0'Keeffe said art was her 'hot spot;' all else revolved around it and seemed secondary if not merely necessary." . • He adds humorously, "It's also fun and beats selling cars." "Nevertheless, art is very essential to my being here. I need the eommunion. Don't you think we all do? Why be here otherwise?" Dickson was born, raised, and has lived pnmanly in Hawai'i. His art is instilled with imagery of the islands, images absorbed by his senses and seeded in his soul. He paints images of the forests and coasts, the expanse of lava deserts, Hawaii's skies and sunlight. Dickson calls his work primitive, although it has been called contemporary abstraction. He has no formal art education but has followed the path of exploration and studying artists he likes to discovering his own style. His work is decidedly abstract, and not what is usually categorized as an Hawaiian artist's medium. He says he is not trying to reconcile the past with the present in terms of Hawaiian artistic identity or style. Nor does he try to replicate historical imagery, or a contemporary, stylish genre. Rather

he follows his own vision, as he feels we all should. "My abstractions reach for a present and future reality. They seem to reveal the 'primitive,' intuitive, instinctive, child-like aspects of who I am, and who Hawaiians are. Consequently they are not intellectualized, they are frenetic, energy-infused. They are at onee ancient and futuristic." Dickson attended Pacific Preparatory Academy and Hawaii Loa college, received his law degree in 1984 from the Richardson School of Law at UH with the help of a Kamehameha Schools Na Pokii graduate scholarship and an Alu Like grant. He was admitted to the Hawai'i bar later that year. His legal career goals are to eonhnue in government legal service, and eventually to work in areas of family law, juvenile law, native Hawaiian rights, and art and entertainment law. Dickson is a member of Aha Hui O Hawai'i organization of Hawaiian law students and alumni and the Pnnee Kuhio Hawaiian Civic Club. His art has been featured in group showings and at Gallery EAS.

Charles Dickson