Featured Artists: GP Merfeld, Richard Koob, & Arthur Johnsen
Featured Cover Photographer: GP Merfeld
In the 11 years since being featured on Ke Ola Magazineʻs first cover, GP Merfeldʻs passion has continued with his Portraits of a Culture project, concentrating on the activities and events unique to our islands, like hula, Hawaiian music, outrigger canoe paddling, and the paniolo lifestyle. GP concentrates mostly on candid portraits, along with the motion and grace of our islandʻs people. He reflects, “I turned my eye to capturing and celebrating the culture of our islands in 2000, and have been consumed by this passion ever since.”
GP was raised in Southern California, and he later traveled the world for three years before settling at Lake Tahoe, which became his home for the next five years. He moved to Hawai‘i Island in 1982.
He had fallen in love with photography while in high school, and processed his work in a homemade darkroom. While traveling from Europe to Nepal and India, his camera was stolen, and he did not resume his photographic passion until more than 20 years later, with the advent of digital photography. GP is currently working on a retrospective of his work to be published in a series of books.
GP states this eloquently on his website:
“By exploring differences, I encourage acceptance
By exposing dichotomies, I find unity
By celebrating the unique, I embrace the whole
By honoring the tribes of man, I honor the greater Family of Man.”
“I have always been a lover of Nature as well, of animals and oceans and mountain forests, choosing in adulthood to make my home away from the city, living a simpler life to the tick of a slower clock. The camera for me, as for many photographers, has encouraged me to drop to my knees in exploration of the natural world up close, reveling in the magnification of a divine design, intricate and beautiful. Yet somehow my focus always seems to return to the human face, to the stories written in the eyes, the lines, the texture and glow of the skin, the arch of a brow. Each story so different, some short with youth, others speaking volumes with age, and all sharing chapters in the greater human book. And so I attempt to record these stories, these fleeting glimpses of unguarded moments, by taking candid portraits on the street or in the country, wherever I go.”
“Living in Hawai‘i for well over half my life has been a special journey of its own, and I am honored and humbled to partake of the immense beauty of the land and its people on a daily basis. I feel that it is my privilege and my obligation to share with the world the rich and endangered culture of these islands, and so my personal project, Island Preservations, which began as a scientific process of preserving indigenous flowers, has grown into a photographic journey to preserve the Tribal Heart, Island Life, and Aloha Spirit that is Hawai‘i. I am thankful.”
GP’s work has been exhibited in several galleries throughout the islands.
For more information: gpmerfeld.com
Table Of Contents Artists: Richard Koob and Arthur Johnsen
Inspired by the Puna Canoe Club and Pele’s creativity, Richard first painted Hoe Wa‘a in oil on canvas, and then collaborated with beloved Arthur Johnsen in producing this pareu for the 1985 Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture in Tahiti, which commenced with the arrival of Hōkule‘a and other heritage vessels.
Richard grew up in Minnesota, received his bachelor of arts in literature in Germany, and had dance-arts careers in New York and Paris. He arrived in Hawai‘i in 1973, receiving his MFA at UH Mānoa. In 1975, Richard co-founded Kalani Honua retreat center in Kalapana.
When Richard met Arthur, he was helping him silkscreen for O‘ahu craft fairs. Arthur became artist-in-residence at Kalani from 1989–1998, and thereafter built his own studio nearby. Arthur excelled in art at Punahou, then UC Berkeley. Although he passed away in 2015, his aloha generosity and nostalgic paintings of the Puna coast and Hawai‘i’s heritage continue to inspire. His painting of Pele has graced HVNP’s Visitor Center since 2003.
For more information: https://richkoob.wixsite.com/website
