Ian Kuali'i - ʻAʻohe hope e hoʻi aku ai

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Ian Kuali'i

Image ID: artist's rendered graphic image of Hawaiian Ki'i sculpture in black & white. Courtesy of the Artist.

Opening: Friday, July 7, 2023. 5pm to 9pm

Ian Kuali'i | ʻAʻohe hope e hoʻi aku ai / And We Never Looked Back

And We Never Looked Back is an interdisciplinary exhibition comprised of works by Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) and Mescalero Apache artist Ian Kualiʻi, featuring hand-cut paper, bold land art installations, and video documentation of the artist’s process. With a wide range of both figurative portrait imagery and symbolism through traditional pattern, Kualiʻi honors spiritual deities, personal genealogies, culturally and historically significant Native Hawaiian figures, and stories that are often misrepresented or left out entirely.

Artist Biography: Ian Kualiʻi is a self-taught interdisciplinary artist of Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) and Mescalero Apache ancestry working in murals, large-scale hand-cut paper, and site-specific installation. Ian fluidly merges urban contemporary art with his ancestral iconography and history, drawing from occult symbolism, Indigenous politics, and Native Hawaiian cultural practices. From a single sheet of paper using only an x-acto blade as his tool, Ian’s portraits and compositions are carefully rendered in hand-cut paper, blending boldly geometric traditional patterns with delicate lenticular linework. Ian describes his creative approach as “a meditative process of destroying to create.”

See full details of info in Ōlelo Hawai'i and English at urbanshaman.org

Urban Shaman: Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery acknowledges the support, throughout the year, of our friends, volunteers, community and all our relations, NCI FM, Wawanesa Insurance, Winnipeg Foundation, Manitoba Heritage, the Government of Canada, the Winnipeg Arts Council, the Manitoba Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. ~ Miigwetch/ Pidamaya-ye(-do) / Marsi / Ekosi / Maarsii / Miikwehc / Nakurmiik / Thank you