Imai Kalahele’s artwork is being displayed at the Louis Pohl Gallery through August

Ask anyone in Hawaii’s art community who Imai Kalahele is, and the answer could be different every time: a musician, writer, teacher, sculptor, painter and activist — a Renaissance man, some might say.

In an interview at the Louis Pohl Gallery in Chinatown, where his new show opened earlier this month, Kalahele said he was once “one angry Hawaiian, but, shoots, I’ve done a lot of things. What I am doing now? I push paint.”

The gallery walls are covered with canvasses exploding with color, each holding a story the artist said he hopes viewers will discover.

It’s worth noting that the gallery will be showing Kalahele’s works through August, but on July 31 he will change out all the paintings in honor of Ka La Hoihoi Ea, Restoration Day, when the sovereignty of the islands was restored through diplomatic channels after a brief conquest by Great Britain.

The canvasses currently on view could be called painterly — in contrast to other large works Kalahele has done primarily with markers, a tool he loves. On these canvasses, patterns from markers can be discerned between the layers of paint.

The paintings have movement, depending on where the eyes focus, with figures, faces and the repeated peaks of the Koolau Mountains in the foreground and suddenly in the background.

Originally, “He Came in Grace,” one of the largest pieces in the show, was blue. It didn’t sing to him, Kalahele said. “ I went to bed, got up the next day and saw the face I didn’t realize was there.” He added orange to bring out the face.

An all-blue canvas, “Dancing in the Clouds Under the Stars,” also reveals secrets. Kalahele said he sees things happening behind things. He cites the image of the see-through carved prow of a Maori canoe, revealing sections of the landscape in the background.

Two long canvas pieces, hanging from rods, were made in cooperation with Kalahele’s artist-friend Cory Taum. “Cory and I work well together. He does his thing, paints in the morning. I paint late. I come in and find arrows of tape with notes that say ‘paint here.’”

Kalahele gave his signature laugh, accompanied by a shake of his long white hair. “We speak the same language without being in the same room,” he said of Taum.

Other pieces in the show include small “found” sculptures of beach-combed coral, beautifully mounted on koa blocks, and what appears to be a traditional woven kii, or image. On closer inspection, one sees that the natural fibers are woven with recycled twine. Scattered on the tables beside copies of his art-and-poetry book, “Kalahele,” are bold, delicate, three-dimensional artworks cut from layers of mat board.

Kalahele’s art tells the story of his life. Born in 1946, he grew up on Fort Street in Chinatown. His dad was from Illinois and his mom was from Maui. He shined shoes and hung out, always knowing, “I could sing, play guitar and draw. I knew I was going to do some kind of art. But back in the day we were lucky we stayed out of trouble.”

He said writing songs was something you did if you played guitar. “I had a friend in publishing who was brave enough to tell me, ‘Those are not songs, bra, they are poems.’ I said, ‘Nah.’”

But he quickly learned about staples and photocopying, and used his own pen-and-ink drawings to illustrate his first book of poetry.

In 1960 he found his way to the Honolulu Academy of Art to study with Charles Higa and Louis Pohl. He also found inspiration in the work of Diego Rivera, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso. In 1964 Kalahele was drafted and found himself in the bush in Vietnam. “I wanted to draw but had nothing. I wrote to Louis Pohl, and in the return mail came a box of pens, pencils, paper.”

Over the years, much of his art and poetry depicted conflict and cultural resurgence for Hawaiians such as the protect-Kahoolawe movement. “One by one/Strand by strand/We welcome/The memory of our people,” he wrote in one poem.

“For my own political philosophy I look toward my ancestry, look to Papa, earth mother, and work between ancestral knowledge and modern influences,” Kalahele said.

He also taught students to speak their minds through art. “A Journal of Fiction, Poetry & Art, the Kalahele Edition,” published by Kamehameha Schools, is the work of students inspired by Kalahele’s art and poetry.

His work is in many collections as well as in the Hawaiian Studies Building at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and at the Aulani Disney resort.

Kalahele recently retired after 37 years at the Queen Liliuokalani Children’s Center, where he taught children and started the first all-Hawaiian contemporary art exhibit. With four children and 15 grandchildren of his own, he has had plenty of experience inspiring young minds.

He thinks of himself, Kalahele said, as a teacher who learns.