It’s just sitting there, begging for snarky comments — the announcement that $40,000 has been budgeted for an official portrait of former Gov. Neil Abercrombie, one of the more unpopular local political figures of our era.
Some have been asking if Abercrombie will pose sitting or standing, or whether it even matters. One person suggested inking Abercrombie like a dead fish and rolling him across butcher paper, gyotaku-style. And the comments about the money (though it’s not taxpayer money) — goodness!
For just a moment, put down the pitchforks and think about the artist.
This is the biggest commission Kirk Kurokawa has ever received, and he’s pretty thrilled about it. Kurokawa was born and raised on Maui, Kahului-side, and graduated from Baldwin High School in 1992. From there, he went on to the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. He graduated with a bachelor’s of fine arts in 1997. Since then, he’s been a freelance illustrator and an art teacher, and has had shows in galleries and museums. Although he’s won some big awards — like the $15,000 jurors’ prize in the 2006 Schaefer Portrait Challenge — he says he’s spent years as a “starving artist.” He currently works in a bicycle shop and is married with two kids, ages 4 and 2.
So he’s very excited to get to paint Abercrombie.
“It means so much to me, having grown up here. I’ve done art for so long and I’ve been searching for more,” Kurokawa said. “To have this opportunity to paint something that will last a long time, something that is part of history and not just a pretty thing to put on the wall, it’s amazing for me.”
His body of work (which you can check out on his website kirkkurokawa.com) is different from the stiff, formal style of traditional portraiture. His subjects are often at ease, unguarded, wrapped up in their own thoughts. He paints ordinary people doing ordinary things and somehow elevates those everyday moments into grandeur.
Abercrombie was quoted as saying that he was moved to tears during Kurokawa’s in-person interview. Kurokawa says he doesn’t remember what it was that might have made Abercrombie get tearful, but that despite his careful preparation for the interview, he ended up just talking about what it was like to grow up in Hawaii, to have big dreams on a small island, to want to pick up a paintbrush and tell people’s stories.
“I just put aside the notes and tried to speak from the heart,” he said. As for the challenge of painting the official portrait of a politician who is not exactly beloved, Kurokawa said, “I have no thought of how someone is portrayed politically. I just want to paint. I want it to be great, I want it to be part of Hawaii’s history and to last forever. I want to capture the person’s energy and what they brought to the table. I want it to be honest.”
(OK. Now you can snark.)
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Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
