
After 2 years of being away from Hawaii Rachel Kaiser returns. Her nationally collected art, consisting of paintings, and shrines will be featured in Ong King Arts Centers unique First Friday opening, plus evening entertainment including: groove/funk band Quadraphonix, Nationally Recognized SLam Poet kahlil almustafa, Hip Hop Artist Anthem Kentura, Japanese Belly Dance group Yamato Nadeshiko, underground theatre company HUTC, The Jerome James Collective, and DJ Joulz.
ART GALLERY OPENING: We each have the innate ability to see the grand scheme, to feel a connection to more than just the immediate, says Rachel Kaiser, a young single mother and nationally collected artist. Her dynamic, multimedia artistic approach has long incorporated her moving, personal experience of relevant modern themes.
Rachael Kaisers diverse work includes painting, woodcarving, drawing, and shrine creation. She has received several national and local commissions including St. Francis Hospital in Eva Beach. She has been trained a around the world, at Yale University, the Chicago Institute of Fine Arts, and The School for International Training in Indonesia.
In 2001 Rachael teamed with Ong King founder and local musician Jonathan Heroux to found Chinatowns On the River. Their combinations of music and art brought a new aspect to the local art scene. This collaboration of performance, art, and music was the foundation upon Ong King Art Center was built.
Motherhood is a deeply personal subject for Kaiser, who found out she was pregnant at 24 while on an art residency program in Vermont. I didnt know what to do, says Kaiser. I wasnt married. Things werent mapped out for me in my life enough to make that decision. And so I went for a walk and came across some painted rocks outside of a painting studio. There was one directly in my line of vision that said Be Pregnant. And that is a recurring theme for me - if you are searching and have the intent to know the answer, the answer appears in some form or another. Somehow, in just a moment, I could fly above the situation and know exactly what I was supposed to do. Now, many years later, it is clear that I made the right decision.
Her new exhibition draws parallels and differences between human mothers and those in the bird kingdom. Birds have the innate ability to physically soar above and see the grand scheme, but birds cant be pregnant, Kaiser continues. A pregnant bird woman does not exist; its an unnaturally weighted down notion. Humans are weighted down, so we must constantly strive to use our instincts well to connect ourselves to the overall scheme. Only then, ironically, do we find ourselves on solid ground.
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