Free and open to the public.

Reception, April 13, 6-9 pm

“He wahī paʻakai — Just a package of salt”

The works in A Gift, A Breath address the idea of reciprocity, or a conscious relationship built upon a mutual give and take.

Using traditional ʻohe kāpala craft, simple found object sculpture, and paintings on paper, Lehuauakea explores various acts of reciprocity from a mixed-Native Hawaiian perspective. Examining the ties between oneself and their community, a culture and its surrounding environment, or even the present and the past, these mixed media works seek to highlight the role of customary offering practices, or hoʻokupu, within a contemporary context.

What are the conditions, verbal or nonverbal, temporal or atemporal, that must be met in order for these gifts to be rightfully given, acknowledged, and received?

What, then, ultimately carries greater weight — the object of the gift, or the act of giving in itself?

Artist Bio
Lehuauakea Fernandez is a mixed Native Hawaiian interdisciplinary artist from Hilo, Hawaiʻi. They have participated in several solo and group shows throughout the Pacific Northwest, most recently Yəhaw̓ at King Street Station in Seattle, and the 23rd Annual Recent Graduates Exhibition at Blackfish Gallery in Portland. Through a range of craft-based media, sculpture, and installation, their art serves as a means of exploring cultural and biological ecologies, mixed-Indigenous identity, and what it means to live within the context of contemporary environmental degradation.

Lehua currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon after recently earning their Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting, with a minor in Art + Ecology at Pacific Northwest College of Art.

lehuauakea.com

Gallery Hours: 12-7PM on Saturdays
The gallery is open late for Georgetown Art Attacks on the 2nd Saturday of every month. To make a non-Saturday viewing appointment email thealicegallery@gmail.com