VIE DU PACIFIQUE II / PACIFIC PERIMETER EXCHANGE PRINT FOLIO 2016

artwork by yoshimi teh
September 4, 2018 – February 15, 2019 / John Young Museum of Art
The Vie Du Pacifique II Print Folio 2016 is a collaborative project organized by Jennifer Sanzaro-Nishimura, an artist and a faculty member at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. She conceived of the project to resist fear-driven politics that erect false racial and cultural barriers by creating possibilities for artists to have face to face contact in collaborative workshops and residencies throughout the Pacific region.

HARRY TSUCHIDANA: WORKS ON PAPER

HARRY TSUCHIDANA ink on paper artwork

Jelly Beans-E  EXHIBITION

HARRY TSUCHIDANA: WORKS ON PAPER
August 26 – October 5, 2018
The Art Gallery at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

Exhibition Catalog Available. Contact gallery@hawaii.edu

Sunday, September 2
2:00–3:00 p.m., Talk story with Harry Tsuchidana
3:00–5:00 p.m., Combined opening reception with Emily McIlroy: Noctuary, Commons Gallery

Tuesday, August 28
2:00–2:45 p.m., Talk story with Harry Tsuchidana (Session 1)
3:00–3:45 p.m., Talk story with Harry Tsuchidana (Session 2)

Sunday, September 23
12:00-2:00 p.m., Catalog signing with Harry Tsuchidana

Sunday, September 30
12:00-2:00 p.m., Catalog signing with Harry Tsuchidana

Exhibition Summary
More than eighty diverse drawings and paintings on paper are featured in the exhibition Harry Tsuchidana: Works on Paper, on view at The Art Gallery, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM). Although this esteemed living artist has produced an incredible volume of works over the course of his decades-long career and has received much-deserved attention in solo and group exhibitions for his paintings on canvas or board, this is only the second presentation that foregrounds his works on paper. The previous exhibition was held thirty years ago at Honolulu Academy of Arts’ Graphic Arts Gallery.

Rod Bengston, previous gallery director, UHM, selected the works in this exhibition. In conversations with Tsuchidana, Bengston identified seventeen themes and expressions—some of which the artist returned to over and over again throughout decades of his investigations. A selection of Bengston’s notes and observations accompanies the sections in the exhibition.

Recent UHM alumni are also contributing to this exhibition. Joelle Takayama (BFA, 2018) is creating a dynamic fifteen-foot long drawing that portrays the essence of Tsuchidana’s studio. Liezel Bagay (BFA, 2018) is the graphic designer of the accompanying forty-page exhibition catalogue.

Artist Statement
It’s about the process, not about hitting the target. If you hit the target you are lost.
–Harry Tsuchidana, 2018

harry-tsuchidana-2018 harry-tsuchidana-1957

Harry Tsuchidana 2018 and 1957

Artist Bio
Harry Tsuchidana (b. 1932, Waipahu, O‘ahu) considers himself to be a part of the international modernist art movement. At eighty-six years old, he still wakes at 6:00 a.m. every morning for a full day’s work diligently solving “equations” regarding line, form, color, and composition in his studio situated adjacent to his apartment.

Tsuchidana was among a cohort of young artists from Hawai‘i who found their way to New York in the mid-twentieth century. Along with Satoru Abe, Bumpei Akaji, Ralph Iwamoto, Keichi Kimura, Robert Kobayashi, Sueko Matsueda Kimura, Tetsuo Ochikubo, Jerry Okimoto, and Tadashi Sato, the artists found friendship and support, with Isami Doi serving as their mentor.

After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps (1952–55), Tsuchidana chose to utilize his G.I. Bill for an art education. He first attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., (1955–56), then went to New York City to study at the Brooklyn Museum Art School and later at the Pratt Institute School of Art (1957¬–59). Employed as a night watchman at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, Tsuchidana had the chance to view and study the masterworks over many evenings. Eventually, he felt that he was having conversations with those artists about their works. Tsuchidana also worked in MoMA’s mailroom where he opened a thank you card made with crayons from Pablo Picasso following the exhibition, Picasso: 75th Anniversary.

Tsuchidana received a John Hay Whitney Fellowship (1959). He has participated in numerous exhibitions over his long career. Tsuchidana had his first solo exhibition at the Library of Hawaii (1955), and most recently presented his work in Harry Tsuchidana: A Retrospective, the Honolulu Museum of Arts’ First Hawaiian Center (2016), and Abstract Expressionism: Looking East from the Far West, the Honolulu Museum of Art (2017–18).

HARRY TSUCHIDANA artwork on paper

Sponsors
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Department of Art + Art History and College of Arts + Humanities; Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, through appropriations from the Legislature of the State of Hawai‘i and by the National Endowment for the Arts; and supported by Waikiki Parc Hotel – Hospitality Sponsor for the Arts at UH Mānoa; Student Activity & Program Fee Board, UHM; Women’s Campus Club, UHM; and anonymous donors.

Address, Hours, + Admission:
University of Hawai‘i Art Gallery
2535 McCarthy Mall, Honolulu (UH Mānoa campus)
Mon. – Fri. 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.; Sun. 12:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Closed: Saturdays; Sept. 3, Labor Day.
Free admission. Donations are appreciated.
Parking fees may apply.
Directions

Images:
(top)
Harry Tsuchidana
Low Tide, 1964
watercolor on paper
Courtesy of the artist.

(bottom)
Harry Tsuchidana
Weed, 1974
tempera on paper
Courtesy of the artist.

Information may be subject to change.