Louis Pohl Gallery
MYSTIC WONDERS
March 19 to May 17th
Harmony
It wasn’t the glorious facilities of the University of Hawaii print shop that kept former Midwest cowboy Russell Davidson in the islands. It was riding a wave like he rode a bronc. First came sailing, then hanging in the trapeze of a small catamaran, then windsurfing. He was hooked.
Backing up the story a bit – an injury kept young Russell out of the rodeo ring. Graduate school in Ohio kept him in the art department. He thought about San Francisco as a place for art. “I only came to Hawaii for a nine-month contract to teach printmaking. I signed on for one year at a time,” he says. He stayed on for twenty years.
Haleakala
Luckily for those who wanted to learn lithography, the ocean kept Russell in the islands. It certainly wasn’t the lavish print shop that made him stay. As any printmaker will tell you, in 1970 there was no on-campus art building. Art 101 was taught in the Varsity Theater and the printmakers held court at what is now Puck’s Alley. Late night printers had to deal with drunks and bar babies.
 Russell was a painter. He painted what he lived. One wall-sized painting put the viewer right in the center of a rain squall at sea. You could smell the sea salt in the air. He was a corporate designer for the world’s most famous windsurf equipment companies. He was “discovered” quickly and collected by the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and Arts, The Contemporary Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts and fans across the globe. He probably can’t name the countries where all his current collectors live.
In his new work Russell Davidson offers up a new color theory. His paintings glow through deep layers. He describes them as a conflict of complimentary colors that are in harmony. The painting, “Harmony”, is five feet long. “I sometimes use four colors just to get red,” he says, suggesting a mixture of cad red, yellow, pink, and green. “But I’m not saying for sure,” he says with the winning smile that kept his printmaking students working all night just to please him.
The exhibition is at the Louis Pohl gallery. Pohl, famed for his printmaking and his painting, was an inspiration to the Hawaii art world and a pal to Davidson and all the other art faculty. Sandy Pohl keeps fine art in front of the public, in a gallery that gives artists a place to hang art and hang out. Listen in. The truth is way better than fiction.
www.russellmdavidson.com
Submitter: Lynn Cook
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