Ups and downs

When artist John Tanji Koga left his post as head of installations at The Contemporary Museum, he entered into a time of uncertainty.

"Leaving the museum was scary because it’s basically where I brought my kids up," he said. "That was my entire world for 19 years of my life. … Even though there was this excitement, I didn’t really know what I was going to do."

His personal life was going through "some journeys up and down," with his ailing mother and his son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, needing special attention. Art, more than ever, became his "meditation," he said. "It was certainly a way to express my feelings."

The result of that period can be seen in a special exhibit of sculpture and paintings at the Hono­lulu Museum of Art titled, appropriately, "Undulation: rise and fall." Koga was offered the show as the recipient of the Catherine E.B. Cox Award for Excellence in Visual Arts, given biennially to a former or present resident of Hawaii.

The show features a series of abstract paintings and sculpture with curvilinear lines and shapes that suggest forms of nature such as clouds, hills and parts of the human body. "It’s really basic. It’s about form, lines and colors," said Koga, who is known for using human forms as subject matter.

The paintings in the exhibit use muted tones and have the barest suggestion of perspective, which seems odd since the rounded shapes themselves seem so clearly linked to the three-dimensionality of the sculptures.

"I struggled with it," Koga said. "I don’t want it to be sculptural, in one sense."

The paintings also have a sensuality about them, and Koga is happy if you notice it.

"Sensuality is huge, humor is huge," he said. "I think a lot of art is selfish. (It’s) to make me feel good. Sometimes there are political statements that will come in between it all, when I really have to say something, but in general it’s about my feelings. Certainly everything’s drawn from nature."

That might seem evident in the titles of the works such as "Dawn," "Dusk" or "Spring." Koga didn’t even have a title in mind when working on them, coming up with titles only because "the museum needed them."

"I don’t normally title things," he said. "I try not to. It takes too much energy in my brain." Now he considers the titling of the works somewhat like poetry.

Koga’s interest in art started during his childhood, when his grandfather, an expert in traditional Japa­nese woodcarving, came to live with his family in Manoa.

"One of the cool things we would do is we would walk along the beach and find wood, and he would go, ‘Doesn’t this look like an eagle?’" he said. "And he would turn it into this beautiful eagle."

He also received encouragement from his family — the women encouraged the study of art, but he got a businessman’s perspective from his father, which was useful during his days at The Contemporary Museum. Koga got his master’s degree in art at the University of Hawaii, counting Gordon Mark as a major influence along with other figures such as Satoru Abe, Tada­shi Sato, Isamu Nogu­chi and Sanit Kewhok.

Koga has long been involved in promoting young artists, and now he is bringing his experience as an organizer and promoter of art to other realms. He was recently invited to help with the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra, using his expertise in making connections to help "connect the dots more." Though he recognizes the challenges of that effort, he sees his work as a visual artist as an even bigger one.

"This — art on the walls — is the hardest thing to sell to the public in a sense," he said. "Food, right away, we understand, but people don’t really understand that it’s part of that creative world. And then music is next. You take music away for a day, and people understand (its importance). But you can take away art, kind of.

"For me it goes from food to music to fashion to architecture, design. And then art. It’s the hardest one, and fortunately or unfortunately, that’s what I do."