Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 19, Number 1, 1 January 2002 — Artist's work captures healing mana [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Artist's work captures healing mana

By Naomi Sodetani

Kau'i Chun's latest work "HEAL/OLA" was born amidst the pain following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "The world was hurting and I also needed to address my own pain. There was so mueh anger, shock and disbelief," the conceptual artist says. Chun's mixed media installation runs through Feb. 3 at the Queen Emma Gallery at Queen's Medical

Center, presenting two conceptual works that explore the theme of healing and compassion as a spiritual imperative and antidote to personal and geopolitical crises. Chun selected sacred texts from different cultures, including passages from a Hawaiian chant, the Bible, Torah and Koran. He then manipulated the texts through a photocopier, transforming them into "rhythmic abstract patterns of tonal values." Chun's other "healing wall" is dedicated to the 60 volunteer healing touch practitioners who work with the center's breast cancer patients. The artist worked with the healers to produce handprints onto sheets of frosted mylar, whieh he arranged into a wall-sized collage

portraing thewaves of healing mana emitting from the human touch. "ī'm not interested in 'beauty' in the typical Western sense," Chun says. "My art seeks to capture the spirit of a plaee that flows through us and vice versa, When my ancestors were buried, their iwi, their mana goes into the'aina," īn one work, "Genealogy of the Land," Chun represented the energies generated by Hawai'i's volcanoes, using earth pigments gathered from eaeh island to treat the canvas es, The huge installation was included in the "Nā Maka Hou" exhibition of contemporary Native Hawaiian artists at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, A Vietnam veteran who lived on the Mainland for 18 years, Chun

returned to Hawai'i in 1991 and began expressing his Hawaiian side after the 1993 centennial of the overthrow. "Marching with thousands of other Hawaiians, ī began to feel more connection to my history," he says, Chun's "Washington Mono-men-tal," inspired by the 1999 federal reconciliation hearings, resurrects that history through six huge stacks of copies of historic documents, "These pieces of paper show how Hawaiians give testimony over and over again," the artist says, "New promises are being made, but at this point, it's only more paper, guys," The public is invited to a "meet the artist" reception at the gallery space on Jan, 13, 1:30 - 3:30 p.m, ■

Pāhfona

Kau'i Chun crecites cirt cibout heciling