In December 2020, after nine months of COVID-19 deaths, I woke to the unsettling statistic that 270,000 people in the U.S. had died. The lives lost were simply numbers on the front page. The virus was impossible to ignore, but at the same time, somehow unmarked. I’m an artist who has been painting for forty…
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In mid-March, we began to shelter in place, not knowing what to expect and most certainly not expecting the lockdown to last this long. When faced with uncertainty, I did as you’d expect and froze up like a deer in the headlights. Then I began to Marie Kondo my sock drawer, moving on to a…
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I started the heart series before the pandemic with no goal other than making something beautiful and decorative. The series was an experiment in form and color. But as the pandemic began, the hearts took on new meaning. They became a conduit for expressing my own inner turmoils. And they became a way of connecting…
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So many thoughts and emotions around COVID-19. I had to paint it out—this emotional tempest in my mind. Our lives literally spiraling out of our control, our privileged lives restricted. The spiral, bottom left, literally 2020 spiraling out of control. Collaged fragments of topographic maps from places we didn’t travel. A stylized COVID…
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Two weeks before the pandemic I had a two-week show of my “Sonny Pops” paintings at Luxury Row in Waikiki. I am thankful that we didn’t schedule it for March as we had originally planned. No one expected the viral time warp that oozed into our lives. We still struggle to wake up from this…
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“Limbs” is a series created during the pandemic year of 2020 that I have continued into 2021 to express my lingering questions about a new beginning. Many times, I have said to myself, “When will this pandemic be over? Will it really be over even when we can be around others with no mask and…
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I started this painting on January 6, 2021, a day when the US registered nearly 4,000 Covid-19 deaths and political violence at the US capitol shook the nation. On that day, when an unruly mob breached and desecrated the capitol, much more than bricks and mortar were tested as we attempted to make sense of…
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Archeologists often assemble ancient stones to tell a story of a civilization past. What will they tell of our empire? Will there be anything left to piece together? I like to think about the rise and fall of ancient societies. What secrets can we learn from the ruins of old cities? In the past, pandemics…
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The role of science in the pandemic has been a good context for reflecting on and articulating my artistic practice. I believe abstract artists have a duty to develop aesthetic methods for understanding the human spirit. And I believe we must use art to deconstruct ourselves outside the framework of scientific enlightenment and reason. Reason is…
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Democracy, like this mask, is a work in progress, often messy and confusing but hopefully with time will come clarity. Let’s hope we can emerge from this chaotic historic moment, humbled by our exposed fault lines, with renewed resolve to create a more just and equitable society. I want to believe Martin Luther King, Jr.…
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