Honolulu Weekly

Solo and small-group exhibitions clearly reflect the personae of their participants, but larger all-media juried exhibitions also have ‘personalities’–the result of the chemistry between the sensibilities of the juror and the array of work presented for consideration. The Honolulu Academy of Arts’ annual Artists of Hawai’i, now in its 56th year, has been a mercurial enterprise, ranging from parsimonious to lavish, elegant to goofy. This year, the exhibition is nothing if not well-behaved.

Edmund Capon, director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, served as this year’s juror, selecting some 79 works by 50 artists, about half of whom are represented by two or more works. This, plus an installation also shaped by Capon and astutely grouped by media and/or theme, adds to the overall coherence of the exhibition.

Not surprisingly, the exhibition includes several artists whose work enjoys consistent success; Kenneth Bushnell’s recent iterations of the ‘Euclidean Dream Cycle’ and Esther Shimazu’s voluptuous stoneware beauties are cases in point. Other work reminds us of the fine line between informed exploration and the safely formulaic, reminding us too that what may be new to a juror from elsewhere may be all too familiar to a local audience. One wishes that more artists would just cut loose once in a while, as did Jay Wilson with his carefully constructed but playful ‘Untitled Rectangular Solid.’

In the end, Artists of Hawai’i is perhaps most valuable for providing a venue for those still becoming visible on the scene, for whom the territory yet to be explored is more expansive than the terrain already known. The layered geometric abstractions of Marc Thomas (his piece, ‘Untitled #7,’ is pictured), and the darkly atmospheric drawings of Rebecca Horne, for example, signal an interest in fresh, even risk-taking encounters with visual experience.

Artists of Hawai’i 2006, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 900 S. Beretania St., through 7/30, 532-8701, [www.honoluluacademy.org]