Lehuauakea

Lehuauakea is a māhū Native Hawaiian interdisciplinary artist and kapa maker from Pāpaʻikou on Moku O Keawe, the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. Lehua’s Kānaka Maoli family descends from several lineages connected to Maui, Kauaʻi, Kohala, and Hāmākua where their family resides to this day.

Through a range of traditional Kanaka Maoli craft-based media, their art serves as a means of exploring cultural and biological ecologies, Indigenous identity, and contemporary environmental degradation. With a particular focus on the labor-intensive making of ʻohe kāpala (carved bamboo printing tools), kapa (bark cloth), and natural pigments, Lehua is able to breathe new life into patterns and traditions practiced for generations. Through these acts of resilience that help forge deeper relationships with ʻāina, this mode of Indigenous storytelling is carried well into the future.

They have participated in several solo and group shows around the Pacific Ocean, and recently opened their first curatorial research project, DISplace, at the Five Oaks Museum in Portland, Oregon. The artist is currently based between New Mexico and Pāpaʻikou after earning their Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting with a minor in Art + Ecology at Pacific Northwest College of Art.

"I consider my current body of work to be an ongoing journey, a cycle, an ever-expanding spiral of reciprocal give and take. Through traditional kapa (bark cloth) and ‘ohe kāpala (carved patterned bamboo stamps), hybrid textiles, and installation, I aim to address complex subjects of mixed identity and cultural erasure, Indigenous resilience, and ecological relationships through a contemporary Hawaiian lens. The patterns in my work are intergenerational, and serve as microcosmic representations of mythologies, origin stories, and environmental relationships since time immemorial. Bringing them into my practice allows this visual language to move and shift over time, remembering the ways of living that birthed them in the first place while incorporating contemporary narratives. At the core — the piko — of my practice is the kuleana, inherent responsibilities, that I have to my community. As this plays out through different modalities — sharing the process of making kapa with younger generations, dancing hula, learning and speaking my Indigenous language, advocating for issues that affect Native communities, and beyond — I ensure that my kapa-making is much more than a studio practice. Ultimately, it is a way of being, a way of relation, and a way of life that works towards a communal goal of renewed sustainability and resilience as Kānaka Maoli." - Lehuauakea