Gestures of Engagement Mural (GEM)
acrylic on canvas
The Gestures of Engagement Mural (GEM) is a three-canvas modular mural painting. Commissioned to honor the vastness and depth that spans the native Pacific Islandersʻ sacred creation outlook. This sacred view is embedded throughout the oceanic and astronomical celestial knowledge of the Hawaiian culture, which is richly and warmly expressed in its arts and history.
GEM triptych details
excerpt from a public presentation by the Artist:
The Hawaiian Islands’ natural attunement to grace lokomaika’i and beauty nani provided the substantive inspiration for this triptych.
The unmatched diversity held within these Islands, which host 27 of the 38 life zones comprising the complete range of habitats on planet Earth, is a dynamic exemplar of a unique enduring coherency within the interplay of our planet’s bio-existence and sentient-inhabitants. As the Artist, I chose to render this spirited achievement through the geometry and poetry of visual voice. Painting a woman and a man of Polynesian heritage, both displaying intentional precise gestures of grace and ancestral story in order to underscore compassion encompassing as a vibrant emergent and essential process between all living species.
In the Hawaiian language this is acknowledged in the expression aloha ‘āina love of the land.
c.moku
GEM. passage iii : Mo’olelo, details the body-art of the two main figures. Along with their natural adornments and the sacred objects they hold before us. Mo’olelo refers to ‘treasured story’. The geometric patterns of the female and male’s body-art, speaks to us of ancestral lineage and place. As with chanting, ‘talking story’ is a cherished pillar of knowledge transmission in the Hawaiian tradition.
This holographic print is an excerpted detail from the full 15’ modular triptych, Gestures of Engagement Mural. It is available for purchase in the ‘depth perception collection’ of the Gallery Shop.
photo stills of the subtle animation that flows seamlessly as we move before the holographic artwork,
thus coining the phrase ‘depth perception collection’
Cynthia has coined the phrase ‘depth perception’ as a way to describe the direct experience of real-time engagement with the artwork. As we move before the lenticular holographic art piece, a subtle animation occurs. Chosen images appear and dissolve in tandem with our movements.
