I’ve been thinking a lot about something I heard Big Island artist Carl F. K. Pao say recently at an artist talk. He was asked about the layers in his paintings. He mentioned that the Hawaiian word for layers is Kaona. (As best I can tell from Google, this word refers to layers of meanings in things, some are not which immediately apparent.) He said,
“Kaona—layers—are not to hide things but to reflect the wisdom of age. As you become older, you see more layers, more depth.”
You can see the layers in his work. As he told me and my friend, artist Bailey Ferguson, that evening, he begins each painting by putting his personal mark on the canvas, a familial hieroglyph, a signature honoring his heritage. Each painting goes literally on top of this massive signature. You can see traces of this underpainting, this mark, peeking out from underneath the “actual paintings”.
As someone who uses layers in their work, is in fact obsessed with layers, I love this new way of looking at them. I tend to think of layers in terms of archeology, secrets, things being hidden and revealed. I I love this idea of thinking about layers as multiplicities. AND, not OR.
Mahalo, Carl F. K. Pao! And if you’re in Hawaii, don’t miss his incredible exibition of paintings based on the life of Kamehameha, on view at the Donkey Mill in Holualoa through March 20. Painted on black roofing paper, these paintings fuse street art with Hawaiian colors, symbols and history. I find them to be nothing short of profound.