Nagano’s artwork is something to crow about

Artist Paul Nagano, best known for his watercolor paintings, will showcase sketches and photographs at “The Year of the Cock 2017,” opening Saturday at the Gallery on the Pali at the First United Church of Honolulu.

The exhibit, up through Feb. 9, features primarily drawings and photographs Nagano created during regular trips to Bali, Indonesia, over the past three decades. He pulled them from sketchbooks dating back to 1984.

“They’re everywhere in Bali,” he said. “So if you’re in Bali, you have to draw them.”

Among them are a delightful interplay between color and plain ink sketches depicting roosters of various breeds in villages, some with humor. There are proud roosters in “Cock, Cats, Coconuts,” and one sitting serenely on a branch in “One in a Tree.”

In “Cock of the Walk,” a plain ink drawing, a rooster struts forward, his combed head turned and tail feathers out in a graceful display.

Nagano, 78, grew up on a chicken farm in Kahala, so the birds hold a special place in his heart.

“They are so interesting because they pose,” he said. “You watch the chicken stand on one foot and look around, so they do pose but you have to be fast to (sketch) them quickly, to get the immediacy of the moment.”

Just as a musician needs to learn the scales, Nagano believes a painter must know how to draw as a basic tool. He believes that drawings have their own intrinsic beauty and value.

Nagano’s photos are minimally enhanced, striving to show the original subject. “I see something in the world of nature, or imagine it and simply record it, hoping that it can be shared with others,” he wrote in an essay about the show.

In celebration of Chinese New Year heralding the Year of the Rooster, the Associated Chinese University Women will host a reception from 3 to 5 p.m. Jan. 28 at the Gallery on the Pali, First United Church of Honolulu, 2500 Pali Highway. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 2-6 p.m. weekends through Feb. 9. Visit unitariansofhi.org/gallery.