Maui’s Schaefer Portrait Challenge captures local nobility

KAHULUI, Maui >> Every three years, the ordinary people of Hawaii find themselves immortalized in paint, sculpture or collage at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in a way normally reserved for royalty.

After a visit to the Schaefer Portrait Challenge 2018, on exhibit in the Schaefer International Gallery, one is reminded of the many regal faces — and lives — among us.

“These are people who have inspired the artists but who are not traditional subjects for portraits,” said noted printmaker Charles Cohan, professor of art at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and one of three jurors for the exhibit. “They have more intimate relationships with the artists, which make the portraits even more meaningful.”

The portraits — no photos allowed — feature island folks of all ages and ethnicities. They burst forth with the joy of life or bring you face-to-face with mortality. Some of the scenes that linger the most are of simple moments not often cherished: sipping a morning cup of tea or letting a crisp bedsheet billow to a mattress below.

Cohan and his fellow jurors, Kauai painter Carol Bennett and Maui ceramic artist Jennifer Owen, selected 57 pieces from 183 entries for the sixth triennial Schaefer Portrait Challenge, which has become a hallmark for the MACC and an anticipated event for artists across the state. It also offers the largest cash prizes of any Hawaii art exhibit, with a Jurors’ Choice Award of $15,000 and People’s Choice Award of $5,000.

“To me, this is the most prestigious art show in Hawaii,” said Lanai painter Mike Carroll, one of only two artists to have been accepted for all six challenges. “It’s more than an honor to be selected for this.”

Carroll’s 2018 entry is a heartfelt image of 100-year-old Irene Kamahuialani Cockett Perry in a flowered muumuu, playing her cigar-box ukulele while sitting on the steps of Ka Lokahi Church, which was built by her father.

In his artist’s statement that accompanied the painting, Carroll described Perry as “a woman at peace and in tune with the spirit of Lanai.”

The statements posted next to each image add another telling layer to the portraits, giving viewers a deeper insight into why the artists were drawn to their subjects.

IN 2000, a committee of local artists and arts supporters decided to establish a signature event in portraiture for the MACC that was modeled after the Archibald Prize, a portrait competition for artists in Australia and New Zealand that has been ongoing since 1921.

With portraiture now mostly replaced by photography, few modern-day artists pursue the genre. As a result, the Schaefer Portrait Challenge was born. Nearly 20 years later, “challenge” remains a key component, encouraging artists to leave their comfort worlds of landscapes or abstracts to depict a face — and breathe life into it.

Maui artist Pamela Neswald took on the challenge of portraying her favorite teacher, acclaimed painter Tony Walholm. Her portrait — dual images of a despondent Walholm slumped on a couch next to an inspired Walholm finishing a large-scale canvas — met with her mentor’s enthusiastic approval.

“It’s me — yes!” praised Walholm to his student’s delight. “It’s awesome to see how she sees me, the truth in it. I can get moody, but at other times I can have all this energy in painting.”

For Kauai artist Natasha Young, portraiture is her favorite art form.

“Not only is there the need for accuracy, but the real challenge is capturing the essence of that person,” she noted. “You can get someone’s likeness, but if you don’t get the essence, it’s just empty.”

Young’s nearly life-sized and lifelike portrait of a woodworker and tradesman identified only as “Brennan” exudes so much essence, it seems as if he could stand up and walk out of the frame. It took Young, who has a master of fine arts degree from UH-Manoa, nearly a year to complete the painting as she replicated every ornate tattoo on Brennan’s bare arms and chest, every fold in his jeans, every crease in his skin while re-creating the tools and clutter behind him in Kodachrome detail.

For her efforts, the artist was awarded the Jurors’ Choice Award, provided by Jack and Carolyn Schaefer Gray, the latter of whom is a longtime MACC supporter and patron of the arts.

YOUNG HAD her favorite pieces: Noble Richardson’s towering love letter of a portrait to his wife in “Adoration of Gaia,” an oil so smooth and shiny it appears to be of lacquer, and Kirk Kurokawa’s continuing diary of his growing family, “The Breakaway.”

Three years ago, Kurokawa won the Portrait Challenge’s People’s Choice Award with his winsome painting of his ohana headed to the beach hauling everything but the kitchen sink. Today, they are a family on wheels: riding bicycles and tricycles, with the newest member of the clan exuberantly rolling along in a baby walker.

Kurokawa, from Maui, said the Schaefer Portrait Challenge launched his art career. After suffering rejection after rejection, he entered a pensive self-portrait in the inaugural 2003 competition with a challenge to himself: If he was accepted, he would continue with art; if he missed the cut, he would explore a new craft.

“I was shaking when I entered,” he said.

Kurokawa’s portrait was not only accepted in that first show, but in every one since. He received another plum when he was recently selected to paint the official portrait of former Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie. Despite all that success, his nerves have not completely calmed.

“I still shake every time I enter this exhibit,” he said.

Years later, it remains a challenge.