Pop Up Islands Painting

Making work on Kaua’i since 2004, now twenty years, with few journeys elsewhere provides endless awakening to unique light and subjects to ponder and present, most from everyday life on the island. Ever fluxing life and weather in the sea, land, atmosphere, animals and botanicals is new and different than even moments ago and intertwine to offer the events of the days and nights charged with a unique harmony unlike destiny mapped out in the mainland experience I only knew before. Despite millions of years of untouched evolution, the wonders of Hawai’i face Armageddon just as everywhere else humans occupied and leveled in the disguise of progress. This flux and flow of elements is what I strive for to achieve in painting and drawing both separately and combined. Working outside is often possible and envelops the artist in confidence of seeing realistically or dreaming abstractly subjects in virtual time, place and conditions of the moment usually left to conjuring in the studio. An endless supply exists of natural elements and tools available and pigments for painting and mark making and assemblage. I will remain evermore on Kaua’i as artist and lucky man to the end of my days, ever humbled by the force of present, past and future story to come. Mac James Kalihiwai Bay 2024