Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 30, Number 6, 1 June 2013 — Stretching the bounds of CONTEMPORARY ART [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Stretching the bounds of CONTEMPORARY ART

By Mary Aliee Ka'iulani Milham

^ " * rowing up in Hilo, Keith Talt lett never thought mueh of I the recycled

% I surfboards he helped his dad make. "Why couldn't he just go buy one?" he wondered. But that early hands-on experience was a profound inHuenee in the life of the artist Tallett has heeome. Today, his mixed-me-dia creations - paintings, drawings, photography and sculpture - are

on the cutting edge of contemporary Hawaiian art. "His work offers a fresh take on Maoli art and is a major leap forward not only for contemporary Maoli art in Hawai'i, but also for contemporary art in general in Hawai'i." says fellow artist and gallery owner Drew Broderick. In February, Tallett was one of 25 artists nationwide honored with a 2012 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. Made to encourage contemporary artists, the $25,000 grants

are based on nominations. The award has allowed him to quit one of his three jobs and cut back his hours at another to spend more time making art. At 43, Tallett is

coming into his own as an artist, melding

his life experience and cultural inheritance with the artistic sensibilities instilled in graduate school at San Francisco's Art Institute. "The voices of professors critiquing me are gone and I ean just soak everything (I learned) in,"

says Tallett, who lives with his wife, Sally, and daughter Kia'i in a home he helped restore on his mother-in-law's 5-acre farm in Pa'auilo. The practical reason for moving home to Hawai'i Island a decade ago was the birth of his daughter and the desire to raise her in the environment he and Sally grew up in. Retreating into the relative isolation of Hāmākua also allowed him to stretch his wings. "Here, there's no major art scene. So

it's kind of niee," because you're free to explore art in your own way, Tallett says. In addition to crafting traditional wooden surfboards (papa he'e nalu), he uses surfboard materials - fiberglass, resin and bright-colored spray paint - in his art to create a slick look that draws viewers in. Tallett says he first became aware of what it is to be "Polynesian" in the early '90s when he spent time - between earning his bachelor's degree and starting graduate school - in Westem Samoa, the Cook Islands and Fiji. Living with a Westem Samoan family for two months, he was as indelibly marked by the simplicity and self-reli-anee of the people he encountered as he was fascinated by the pervasive tattoo culture they shared. So mueh so, that he almost made a career of it. In the end, grad school won out, but his interest in tattooing didn't die. He began practicing the art while still in school and later studied under Tricia Allen, the renowned traditional Polynesian tattoo artist. Eventually, this interest evolved into such provocative creations as a banana tattooed with slang in bold, black lettering. "Life experience and culture experienee, for me, is a big thing in my work," says Tallett. But it's the ideas behind the art that fuel Tallett's creations; things like the duality evident in bumper stickers that say, "Weleome To Hawai'i, Now Go Home." "It's kind of like a weird mixed message. And I think that's the other part, that angst part of, we need this but then we really don't want it, you know?" says Tallett. With artwork, he says, "making something shouldn't solve anything; it's just bringing up more questions." A founding member AGGROculture, a Hawai'i-based art collective creating, showcasing and promoting cutting-edge and challenging concepts in contemporary art, Tallett is working on pieces re-conceptualizing Hawaiian flags and images of Mauna Kea, for an upcoming show starting in June at SPF Projects in Kaka'ako. ■

Mary Ali.ce Ka'iulani MUham, a Portkmd, Oregon-based freelance journalist, is aformer newspaper reporter and eolumnistfrom California 's Central Coast.

Kaka'ako exhibit Keith Tallett's first solo show runsJune 13 to July 14 at SPF Projects at 729 Auahi St., with an opening reception June 13 from 6 to 8 p.m. See Tallett's art at aggroculture.org oron his website at keithtallett.com.

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