M. Pia De Girolamo

Pacific Voyage       Acrylic on Canvas     36" x 54"

After a great vacation in Hawaii recently, I came back from this interesting and stunningly beautiful place and began to distill the experience in a series of paintings. 

I did a lot of color sketches both in Hawaii and back home and started painting on canvas in the studio.  As I worked, lots of images bubbled up in my mind-outrigger canoe sails, sea turtles, dramatic cliffs, heiau (temple) platforms of dark lava rock. 

Early in the course of working on one large painting, I saw a large area of light, warm colors and another area of darker, perhaps foreboding shapes and colors that seemed out of balance. The issue would be how to mesh the two.  But in thinking about the visual problem I suspected that the dichotomy went deeper than color and arose from my perceptions of the islands themselves. 

Kauai and the Big Island of Hawaii were the setting for our trip. These islands offer plenty of access to wild places that despite their breathtaking and even spiritual beauty can be dangerous.  There is no question that Nature is to be respected here.  Rogue waves, sharp lava rocks and great heights keep one’s senses sharpened.  

In addition to natural dangers, there are historical reminders of human violence.  While some heiaus were places of refuge, hula (prayerful dance) instruction, and thanksgiving, others were designated as temples to war and places of human sacrifice and capital punishment for the breaking of taboos. The latter remain a stark metaphor for the human propensity for evil that mars paradise everywhere.

If we are open, travel (even the vacation kind) and art expose us to reality in all its duality of dark and light and we have to decide how to deal with it.