Art can be found everywhere, and in the case of Mark Brown’s exhibit, “Chinatown Plein Air,” at the Louis Pohl Gallery downtown, art can be found right in the neighborhood that inspired it. Brown is a plein air artist whose oil paintings take what passersby may perceive as ordinary scenes in Chinatown and breathe them into vivid and arresting life.

“These paintings give the flavor of the streets,” said Brown in an interview at the gallery a few hours before the opening of his show, which features work he made this year. “I wanted to be true to the grit, rawness and beauty of Chinatown.”

The French term “plein air” refers to drawing and painting outdoors. It’s easy to recognize exactly where Brown set up his easel in paintings such as “Kekaulike Market” and “Oahu Market.” The bustling, lively streets that many of us see every day on our way to work are captured in vibrant reds, oranges and browns. Another local landmark captured in paintings is the Club Hubba Hubba sign on North King Street. These depictions of Chinatown, which range in size from 8-by-10 inches to 48-by-60 inches, are Brown’s way of paying tribute to a neighborhood he has close ties to.

“I’m half-Chinese, and growing up, my mom would take me to Chinatown often,” he said. “As a child, there was always a sort of excitement I felt whenever I came (here), so there is definitely that connection while I was painting.”

Brown was interested in art from a young age, creating comics during intermediate school and painting in high school. Brown started plein air painting in 1993, attending different classes at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Kapiolani Community College and Chaminade University. “I learned that with plein air, it’s all about the subject, perspective, layout,” he said.

Since 2000, he has been teaching a plein air class in the UH-Manoa outreach program. Together with his students, he draws on location every Saturday at different places around Oahu; providing a nice balance to the exhibit’s urban scenes are paintings of serene gardens at the Honolulu Museum of Art and the East West Center, and of the green Koolaus, one of Brown’s favorite subjects, seen from Kualoa park.

“It’s almost like when I’m painting on location, I’m doing my reporting. Then I take the painting to my studio and editorialize it by adding more color or texture to it,” he said. This is particularly true of his painting “Oahu Market,” in which he purposefully “pushed” the colors in the painting, he said.

“There are so many different levels of painting Chinatown. As I’m observing, I see how resilient the store owners are, even though there are so many things coming at them – it’s not just running a shop,” Brown said.

He added that he wore clothes from Savers while painting, which is a messy business, and people downtown would come by and give him money.

Due to public interactions, one of Brown’s challenges was maintaining his focus. People would also come up to him to chat and ask questions. “I’d be receptive to those people, but I’d also have to make sure that I didn’t lend my entire energy to them. That’s something I’d teach my students and fellow artists as well. For example, I tell them not to turn your whole body to (face) them because the dialogue between you and what you’re painting should be stronger than other people interrupting you.”

Painting Kekaulike Market was the ultimate test, because he often ran into people that he knows. “But these people are always encouraging.”

Visit Louis Pohl Gallery to view an exhibit that depicts scenes that you’ll probably see on your way there. Skill aside, Brown shows us that it just takes another perspective, and a little more color, to appreciate the art inherent in a neighborhood as bustling and resilient as our Chinatown.