To visit the gorgeous exhibition of works made with kapa, the traditional Hawaiian bark cloth, by contemporary artists at the Hawai‘i State Art Museum is to travel through time. After walking through galleries showing the museum’s eclectic collection of 19th-century through contemporary Hawaii art to the very end, visitors reach a single room, its walls splashed with color and abstract forms.

The viewer is surrounded by fabric pieces dyed and printed in a wide variety of patterns, textures and dimensions: circles, triangles, stripes and waves arrayed in fine whites, yellows, greens, browns and reds.

There’s a shock of recognition, as if returning to a place of origin.

“Ho‘omau: The Perpetuation of Kapa” contains 14 works by nine local artists: Marie McDonald, Pam Barton, Dalani Tanahy, Philip Markwart, Lisa Schattenburg-Raymond, Pualani Lincoln Maielua, Kau‘i Chun, Viliami Toluta‘u and Juliette May Fraser. Most of the pieces are large, including wall-high banners, and while they appear abstract rather than representational, the geometric shapes, as described in the artists’ statements, have meaning, signifying mountains, lava flows, flower lei and more.

Apart from Fraser’s 1952 “Kapa Beaters,” a linoleum block print on paper depicting two women at work fabricating the bark cloth, and “Ka Hiwa,” a painting in acrylic by Chun, the pieces in the show were made with kapa that was produced by the artists using traditional practices. Several also grew the wauke — mulberry bark trees — from which the bark was taken and made their own dyes and printing tools.

“My hope is for viewers to learn about the depth and richness of Hawaiian kapa, its history and what kapa practitioners are doing today, and how their contributions are part of kapa’s growing history,” said Wanda Anae-Onishi, HiSAM’s collection manager, who selected all of the pieces from the museum’s Art in Public Places Collection with the exception of Tanahy’s “Four Rivers — Four Trees: Na Wai Eha,” made this year.

“Kapa-making is a lot of work and involves using natural resources, which is probably why a lot of people have stopped practicing kapa,” said Tanahy, who started making kapa about 20 years ago. “Four Rivers” consists of four vertical kapa panels in blue, white and yellow shades. They stream from ceiling to floor, drawing the eye downward to several rocks placed at the bottom.

The four rivers are Wailuku, Waiehu, Waihee and Waikapu in Central Maui.

“As I thought of what to do for my piece, I did some research and found that I had many family connections to the streams,” said Tanahy. In “Four Rivers” three panels depict healthy streams, while the fourth has dry, tattered ends. This signifies what could happen if the land is not managed well.

Another arresting, sculptural work is “Na Opua a Hina: Tribute to Hina,” by Pam Barton, in layers of fine, brilliant-white kapa that are reminiscent of rain and waterfalls. According to Barton’s artist’s statement, the color white is reserved for the divine, in this case Hinaea, the goddess of sunrise and sunset.

Her process: Barton soaked the bark in seawater, scraped off the outer layer to reveal the white bast fiber and then soaked the bast for a second time. The bast strips were then formed into cloth by beating the fiber with a hohoa (wooden club) on a kua pohaku (stone anvil).

Reflecting the origins of kapa cloth, Philip Markwart’s “Nani ka Hala, ka Wehi o ka ‘Aina” evokes images of native foliage and plants and trees in green and yellow. His uniform, symmetrical designs of geometric, zigzagging shapes are watermarks, impressions beaten into the cloth through the incised surface of an ie kuku (beater).

Also rhythmic and vibrantly colored are Marie McDonald’s “Untitled (Yellow Stripes)” and “Ka Imi Hoku i Mauna Kea,” with its radiating and circular patterns that could represent craters on the volcano or stars in the night sky.

Earth tones dominate in Lisa Schattenburg-Raymond’s “Kapa Mamaki,” which has a chocolate-brown background with darker shades of brown zigzagging throughout; it is made from fibers of the mamaki plant and colored with kukui dyes.

“There was ongoing research by other kapa makers on the mamaki plant. I thought it sounded interesting, so I started experimenting on my own,” said Schattenburg-Raymond, who said she gets ideas from studying works of kapa by other artists. “I wonder, how did they make that? And I research and try to re-create the piece. It’s like reverse engineering.”

Schattenburg-Raymond teaches Hawaiian ethnobotany and fiber arts at the University of Hawaii Maui College, and gives kapa-making classes at Maui Nui Botanical Gardens. “I think we are only starting to understand kapa-making again, and I’m excited that we are able to collaborate and bring people together in exhibits like these,” she said.

Providing a tangible sense of all that goes into making kapa, “Ho‘omau” displays cases of tools: knives for bark removal and scraping; a wood anvil and beaters; a stone bowl and pestle for grinding dyes; bristled hala pods used for paintbrushes; delicately hand-carved sticks for pressing motifs into the cloth. The overall process is well illustrated in the exhibition’s accompanying film, “Ka Hana Kapa,” produced by the Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawaii.

It documents the history of kapa in Hawaii and shows Tanahy, McDonald, Eric Enos and other artists making the cloth and talking about the provenance of the natural dyes they use and the inspirations for their designs, many of which are used in pa‘u skirts for hula halau.

“Ho‘omau” provides an opportunity for viewers to take a step back into a past brought to life and rejuvenated by the blend of the traditional and the contemporary; the works could easily pass for fresh, abstract canvases in a modern art museum. As such, the exhibition inspires hope the ancient art of kapa-making will be preserved well beyond the handful of practitioners whose works are featured at HISAM.

KAPA-MAKING

Kapa-making starts with taking bark from wauke (paper mulberry), mamaki or other trees.

>> A layer of the outer bark skin, including the white bast fiber, is carefully stripped from the tree.

>> Once the stalk is cleaned, a knife is used to make a straight slit down the length of the tree, starting from the thicker end, all the way through the bast.

>> The bast is loosened and carefully pulled down the length of the stalk.

>> The bast is beaten to loosen the fibers and prepare them for soaking in water for two weeks to soften.

>> Leaves, flowers, sap, roots, bark and other natural materials are gathered for natural dyes. (For information on colors, see kapahawaii.com/hawaiian-kapa-designs-and-patterns.)

>> After the fibers have soaked and softened, they are beaten a second time to gradually compress the fibers together while the cloth is spread out to the desired width.

>> Motifs such as triangles and other geometric shapes are carved into wood or bamboo stamping sticks or blocks. Hala tree pods are often used as brushes to apply color.

>> The cloth is colored with brushes and pattern impressions are made with sticks or blocks coated with dyes.

Source: “Ho‘omau: The Art of Kapa” at the Hawai‘i State Art Museum. Classes in kapa-making are offered by Dalani Tanahy, kapahawaii.com.