Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 4, Number 7, 1 July 1987 — Prints Explore Diamond Head's History [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Prints Explore Diamond Head's History

Two approaches to "figurative imagery in printmaking with a message" by two significant contemporary artists also noted for their sculpture are on view in the graphic arts gallery of the Honolulu Academy of Artc

Prints by Krishna Reddy and Laura Ruby is an exhibition of contemporary prints whieh opened July 2 and runs through Aug. 9. Reddy is an influential artist, teacher and humanitarian from India and Ruby is an emerging artist of Hawaii whose work has begun to gain considerable attention both here and on the mainland. Ruby is known to Hawaii art lovers through her exterior sculpture at the University of Hawaii Hilo and the Musicians' Association of Hawaii. She is represented in the two-person exhibition by multi-media prints and serigraphs from her "Diamond Head" series. The images explore the cultural history of the famous landmark, including its plaee in ancient Hawaiian lore and mythology and its more recent military and governmental uses. "Diamond Head has been divided, arbitrarily broken up and scarred by its various possessors, just as the Hawaiian land itself has been. Thus, my prints include the recurrent theme of Mahele, the Hawaiian division of land or general shattering of space. . Ruby explains. The series prints intermix visual references to such Hawaiian themes as the Polynesian ancestral home of Tahiti and the visual language of petroglyphs with images from old photographs and scenes of the 20th century bunkers, remnants of gun emplacements, tunnels and hidden_stairways placed on Diamond Head by the military and now made accessible as a state monument by agencies of the government. Ruby received degrees in English literature at the University of Southern California and San Francisco State College before pursuing a Master in Fine Arts degree at UH. Reddy was born in India, studied sculpture with Manno Manni, Ossip Zadkine and Henry Moore at the Academia DiBelle Art Dibrera in Milan, ltaly, the Academie Grande Chaumerie and the Slade School of Fine Arts at the University of London, and printmaking with

Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17, the avant-garde lnternational Center for Graphics in Paris. He received his degree from the lnternational University founded by Rabindranath Tagore in Santiniketan, India. Reddy has lived and worked for the past several decades in the United States and Europe and has taught as a visiting instructor at UH Manoa. His works have been presented in exhibitions worldwide and been featured in such projects as a United Nations commemorative stamp issue, a portfolio honoring the Nobel Prize and an international festival of culture in Morocco. "Through his prints Reddy projects creative intensity, mystical love, vivid beauty and joy," notes Gustave von Groschwitz, former director of the Carnegie Institute Museum of Art.

This is a print from the Diamond Head series by Laura Ruby in the exibition, "Prints by Krishna Reddy and Laura Ruby," at the Honolulu Academy of Arts July 2-Aug. 9.