Michele Zalopany
Seated Dancers, 2010
water color on canvas
50 x 38 inches
Price: $10,000 / Offered here at: $8,000

Seated Dancers is related to our our current exhibition, Nānā i Ke Kumu – Pay Attention to the Source, which includes several large scale paintings by Michele Zalopany, a New York based artist who grew up in Detroit and spent part of her childhood in Hawaii. Zalopany is of native Hawaiian descent, her father being Hapa Hawaiian, born and raised there until his late adolescence.

Michele Zalopany’s watercolor on canvas, Seated Dancers, from 2010, precedes the pastel on canvas works in the show. Three topless women are seated in a triangular group in front of an open blue space. The woman to the left causally crosses her legs as a lei drapes over her foot. This image relates to the colonial tradition of depicting women in the nude outdoors. Zalopany’s current body of work was inspired by the Photography Collection of the Hawai’i State Archives. Zalopany was drawn to the real history of her Hawaiian ancestors, before colonization and tourism changed the perception of the Hawaiian people, especially of women.

The artist states, “I’m hoping that by putting more images of an older Hawaiian reality out into the world, I may provoke interest in the true history of the Hawaiian people and their land, and thus chip away at the false narrative that overwhelms most peoples’ current perception.”