Current Hawaiian Art Market Merges New Trends and Old

Art Business News, August, 2000 by Jessica Lyons

While tried-and-true tropical scenes are still hot sellers on the islands and beyond, a new brand of art is exploding onto paradise's art scene

HAWAII--Aloha. Welcome to Paradise, the land of romantic sunsets, exotic marine animals and vibrant flowers--and galleries boasting images to match. But recently, a new trend is emerging.

Parisian street scenes, impressionistic landscapes, Rembrandt and Andy Warhol are popular on the islands these days. And while they haven't abandoned the beach-at-sunset paintings and underwater kingdoms that made a name for Hawaii in the art market, buyers are also turning an interested eye towards the nontraditional Hawaiian art.

"What's new for Hawaii is that we're not only selling Hawaii-ish pieces," said Steve Rosenthal, director of Honolulu-based Hogue Publishing, which represents artist John Al Hogue. "There are two very different markets in Hawaii," Rosenthal continued. "There's the first-time Hawaii customer; the honeymooner, the vacation-of-a-lifetime type of person and they tend to want something very typical of Hawaii."

For a so-called typical Hawaiian image, fantasy prints are perpetually popular. "It can be a landmark they recognize or a beach they were on," Rosenthal said. "Fantasy, surreal art does the best, whether it's a landmark or an under-the-sea image. It's still a fantasy version rather than the real-life style. People will buy a postcard if they want to see Diamond Head Crater--[they'll buy art if] they want a fantasy perspective."

A New Breed of Buyer

The second type of art buyer, however, has a slightly different goal in buying Hawaiian art, Rosenthal added. "There's the repeat visitors, who visit one to three times a year. They tend to find an artist they like and collect that artist--not just as a landmark from Hawaii."

The repeat visitors tend to be more high-end buyers, according to gallery representatives. They are willing to spend more than the first-time buyer. So for the artists marketing their work to a high-end audience.

"The resorts are the place to be," said Dominic Piperata, president of Paradigm Arts Group. "The Hyatt on Maui is a much better place to be than an art gallery in Lahaina. These are the people that the galleries depend on for their long-term clients."

Not only do those clients have a higher level of disposable income, but today's Hawaiian art buyer is more sophisticated than the buyer of earlier years, according to several gallery directors and art publishers. And both contemporary artists and classic artwork are thriving, added Lee Rylee, director of Kush Fine Art, which represents Russian surrealist Vladamir Kush.

"European street scenes are doing very well, romantic art seems to be a big trend as is representational impressionism," Rylee said. "People are buying classics, Picassos and Rembrandts. No matter what people buy over here, there's a certain souvenir quality to it, even if it doesn't relate to Hawaii."

Artist A.B. Makk, whose parents are top-selling Makk Studio' artists agreed. "People buy the pieces--let's say it's a picture of Paris--but they buy it in Hawaii, and every time they see that scene, it reminds them of Hawaii.," he added.

A Changing Economy

But it's also a welcome change from the early `90s, when U.S. and Japanese recessions, natural disasters and art scams threatened to wipe out Hawaiian galleries.

"In the late 1980s, the art world was booming," Makk said. "There was major feeling in the U.S. that things were wonderful. Then the recession came, and the first thing that went was the art."

Americans no longer had the money to travel as extensively, let alone purchase artwork while on vacations. As a result, several Hawaiian art galleries shut down.

Today, however, with American, Asian and European economies on the upswing, the future is looking bright for Hawaiian artists--and it's not just the tropical climate. "Art is something you get a good feeling from," Smith explained. "You buy it when you are in a good mood. When the economy is up, people's thought process is up, and they are not so worried about spending $3,000 on a piece of art."

Hawaiian art galleries and publishing companies are enjoying the economy. The islands are abounding with sellers and distributors including Pitre Fine Arts, Ping Lou Morishige, Kim Starr Gallery, James Hoyle Gallery, Paradigm Arts Group, Enchanted Island Studio, Taharra Fine Art, Maui Giclee, Ackerman Gallery, Dana Queen Studios and Wyland Galleries Hawaii, just to name a few.

Indeed, when the economy is booming, the art market follows suit. And with today's new IPO and dot.com millionaires looking for somewhere to invest their new Internet riches, why not the arts?

"They've got the homes, the expensive cars, and they look at the walls and say `What's missing?' It's the art," Rylee said.

And while it gets harder and harder to typify Hawaiian art--an Italian streetscape may be as popular as a portrait of a Hawaiian girl--the face of the art consumer gets more and more difficult to recognize.