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2022.23.15

Painting by Solomon Enos, titled "The Gatherer"

2022.23.15

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Collection type
Object
Description
Painting by Solomon Enos, titled "The Gatherer"
Long description
Painting by Solomon Enos, titled "The Gatherer", 15 of 16 insect and Arachnid People of Subterranean Hawai'i, commissioned by the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, England. 9x12", Acrylic on Bristol board, 2021. Endemic Hawaiian insect: Udara blackburni Narrative: The rich bounty of natural resources that form the living systems on this subterranean macro-island, provides everything that the insect-arachnid peoples need to thrive, with little and few conflicts over shared resources. As flora and fauna fall, migrate, are or brought from each the Hawaiian islands the surface, they have evolved to thrive on the silvery light generated by the ionised clouds of the under-atmosphere. Featured here is one of the many gatherers who spends her time seeking and harvesting a broad range of materials such as food, flowers, nectar, medicinal plants, dye making and carving materials, and anything else her community needs. With her iridescent wings strengthened by her many years of gathering, she is able to fly with nearly thrice her weight of cargo, thought as she weighs very little, this is a slightly modest yet considerable weight. And due to the mighty winds that blow down from the surface above, and the warm breezes that rise up from the thermal zones below, our gatherer must always be carrying some amount of weight to keep from being thrown far off course, or worse, as the weather below the earths surface is far more mercurial then the relatively prosaic storms that march across the archipelago above. Artists note: this series is based on a scene within an Hawaiian Mythological Epic called Hi'iakaikapoliopele, where the heroine Hi'iaka encounters a subterranean world populated by shape-shifting insect-people.
Date / Period
Date made: 2021
Date collected
2021
Acquisition information
Purchased: 2021
Materials and processes
Material Cardboard Paper Plant, Material Acrylic Paint Synthetic, Material Pencil, Process Painted, Process Drawn
Dimensions
Length x Width 303 x 226 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 2022.23.15
Research and responses

Biographical information about the artist: Solomon Robert Nui Enos is a Native Hawaiian artist, illustrator and visionary. Born and raised in Makaha Valley (O'ahu, Hawai'i), Solomon hails from the well known Enos 'ohana (family). Solomon has been making art for more than 30 years and he adept at artistic expression in a wide variety of media including oil paintings, book illustrations, murals and game design. A self-described "Possibilist" Solomon's art expresses an informed aspirational vision of the world at its best via contemporary and traditional art that leans towards Sci-Fi and Fantasy. His work touches on themes like collective-consciousness, ancestors and identity, our relationship with our planet, and all through the lens of his experience as a person indigenous to Hawai'i. Solomon has exhibited in Biennial X (Honolulu Museum of Art), 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Queensland Art Gallery), CONTACT art exhibitions, and others. His work is held in private collections and in the public collections of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Centre and Hawai'i State Art Museum. He has led numerous community mural projects and has received art commissions for hotels, corporate offices, public buildings, and schools in Hawai'i, His latest works include murals and augmented-reality installations for Google and Disney.

Search terms: Picture, Painting

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