THE SUNDAY POST SUNDAY, JUNE 5, 2016
ART
Traditions remembered,
disrupted
Contemporary meets traditional painting, carving, dance and
film at museum
Story & photos by Amanda Pampuro
The Festival of Pacific Arts has come and gone, but the Guam Museum, a concrete
wonder of sling stone and steel, will stand for many years to come. Nestled strategically between Chamorro Village and Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica, the building bridges the shoreline and innards of the capital city, and gives a great excuse to park far and walk.
In its first week of life, the museum has hosted dozen of films and dances from local and visit- ing festival delegates. Inside, three exhibition halls packed in paintings, carvings, weav- ings, sculptures, videos, and photos reflecting commonalities – the beauty of our beaches and our fear of being forgotten – and our distinct differences for the tide that forms tradition beats a little differently against each shore.
From the Solomon Islands Nelson Horipua brought to Guam a dozen paintings depict- ing the complexity of legends, old and new. In “Mind of Determination,” he recalls how the laziest boy in the village entered a fish- ing contest to win the marriage of the chief’s daughter. With determina- tion and the help of the gods, he proves to be much more than useless. The charac- ters of this story are woven together into a surrealistic and symbolic wave. Try to figure out the riddle before you read the artist’s key. In “Food Security,” Horipua brings to the foreground one of the greatest issues threat- ening life in the Pacific – climate change. With a keen aesthetic balanced between old and new, Horipua’s fables will ring true throughout the blue continent.
How often does Guam have a renaissance-trained artist turn his eye on her history? Guam transplant and Japanese painter, Yasu- nori Sakakibara, returned to Guam with his “Warrior of Guam”, finally complete.
“Warrior of Guam,” acrylic by Yasumori Sakakibara
Both a love letter to Guam and a tapestry of her history, this painting is worthy of a museum and must be explored in person.
In a single sculpture, Rebecca Rae Davis confronts the reality of Apra Harbor’s marine life. “Bondage of Guam” depicts a small reef,
wrapped in a chain with a gift tag: Prop- erty of U.S. Government. A minimalist artist, with impact in every stroke, Davis reflects in “Contact” the somewhat miraculous, almost heavenly way history books depict the moment the military entered Guam: like a golden anchor
descending from the sky. On brown parchment paper, with a package of colored pencils Davis confronts the reality others would rather hide behind their palm trees. It’s easy to fall in love with an island for its tropical beauty, and the museum has no shortage of breathtaking beach scenes. Lindsay Kane, on the other hand, followed a strange vision and drew her own “Jungle” as if made from hands. Instead of breadfruit, palm leaves, and sword grass, she drew fingers and fists holding those shapes from far away you couldn’t tell the difference. Up close the scene springs into a strange and frightening daydream. But hey, if you thought the banana leaves were that sensitive, wouldn’t you watch your step?
ART SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2015
Sunday Variety
“THE GODS ARE IN THE DETAILS”
ART
SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2015
Sunday Variety
THE GODS ARE IN THE DETAILS
N
The work of Yasunori Sakakibara on Guam
Story and photos by Amanda Pampuro
he first landscape Yasunori Sakakibara painted on Guam overlooks Hagåtña from Nimitz Hill. Among the buildings scattered` across the image, the old Naval Hospital might stand out, if only because it was torn down shortly after it was captured. This is how artwork becomes important as a historical record, on an island with an ever-changing landscape.
Though he had no way of knowing the building would disappear, Sakakibara captured the scene with the remarkable detail of a novelist. Each indi- vidual house, shown
only from a distance, is rendered with its own personality, as though the owners might be called in to identify their home.
Over the weeks that he worked on the view of Hagåtña, the weather changed often. Some- times it was sunny and sometimes it rained and
Yasunori Sakakibara
eventually the sun set. Therefore Sakakibara had
to f
figure out how to combine varying ephemeral elements to tell the story of the whole. In the final picture, a light rainbow fades into existence on one edge, while storm clouds gather on another.
Before he begins a painting, Sakakibara often spends a week just drawing it out in pencil. Then he uses photos for reference, but paints from life, whenever possible.
“This is a very important question,” he said. The camera cannot capture everything because the human eye has two lenses and the camera only one.
A native of Okazaki, Japan, Sakakibara was trained in traditional renaissance style at Tama
Art University, working with egg temper and oil paint. Fresh out of school, his style was very realis- tic, but changed with each of his trips to Thailand, India, Napal, and Hong Kong. When he reached Guam, his work further broke away from the real- ism he was taught, as he discovered an island full of vivid colors.
“Tumon is just one part of Guam. True Guam is in the jungle,” and Sakakibara loves to sketch. while he is hiking, down to San Carlos Falls and Cella Bay. “In Buddhism,” he explained, “there is a god in everything, looking back at us, much like the Taotaomona.” There is something great and mysterious in nature that Sakakibara finds both inspiring and overwhelming.
“Two years is very short to understand every- thing,” hesaid. “Ineed more time to paint the island.”
Yasunori Sakakibara paints a karabao for the Japanese School in Mangilao. The statue was donated by Kwikspace president Peter Gill.
Sakakibara’s most recent project created some very interesting obstacles. When the president of Kwikspace, Peter Gill, donated a karabao statue to the Japan School in Mangi- lao, he asked Sakakibara to paint it. Moving from a two-dimensional canvas to a 3D sculp- ture proved very difficult, but Sakakibara has triumphed in the trial. Since he first uploaded pictures of the blank canvas to Facebook on Feb.
10, he has spent many afternoons at the Japa- nese school, using his hand as a pallet and work- ing to give the animal life. In its current form, the animal seams to be growing out of its platform, into a wild jungle, that meets the sea on its back.
Perhaps this is a good way to describe his work. The animal that was ordinary in life, once painted by Sakakibara, becomes a creature of legend, worthy of being mythicized.
