Catching the Wave

The Heard Museum offers rare insight into the origins of Hawaiian surfing in a compelling exhibition.

Among the impending excitement for the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, there are also thrilling, unique exhibitions like the He`e Nalu: The Art and Legacy of Hawaiian Surfing, on view now. Curated in five themes, the exhibition will reflect on the roots and origins of surfing, stemming from Native Hawaiian mo’oleo (stories and historical accounts) on he’e nalu or “wave sliding.”

Ha’a Keaulana/Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian), photograph of sisters Maineli and Maluhia Kinimaka (Kānaka Maoli), daughters of surf legend Titus Kinimaka (Kānaka Maoli), 2022 Digital photograph. Collection of the artist.

Co-curated by guest curator Carolyn Kuali’i (Native Hawaiian/Apache) and Heard Museum curator Velma Craig, the exhibition will fall into the following themes: Kāhea, a call to enter the Piper Grand Gallery; Wā Kahiko, Time of Old; I kēia ao nei, Modern Times; Disenfranchisement of Hawaiians in Surfing; I kēia wā aks, The Present into the Future; Malama i ke kai, a malama ke kai la`oe, Care for the Ocean and the Ocean Will Care for You; and Pai hale hanohano, the Continuation of a New Generation.

James Johnson (Tlingit), Raven, skateboard, paint, approx. 32 x 8½.” Collection of the artist.

Within these themes, visitors will see a comprehensive telling of surfing history, beginning with an awe-inspiring mural at the entrance into the Piper Grand Gallery at the Heard Museum, by artist Cory Kamehanaokalā Holt Taum. “The mural will give the visitors a feeling of walking through a portal of the Kumulipo, the cosmogonic genealogy of the Hawaiian people,” explains the museum. Artist Rick San Nicolas will also feature two kahili (feathered plumes used in Hawaiian ceremony) that will flank the exhibit’s title wall at the entrance.”

In the Hawaiian Roots section, we see Sting Board Designs by Ben Aipa “known for shaping the first Sting Board surf boards and inventing the doubled-edge swallowtail and split-tail that forever influenced the future of surf boards, surfing and skateboarding,” museum reps explain.” A video short on the history of the Sting Board, produced by Clifford Kapono (pro-surfer, scientist and filmmaker, will also be available.

Lehuauakea (Kānaka Maoli) holding ’ohe kāpala (hand-carved bamboo printing tools) used for stamping patterns onto finished kapa (bark cloth textile) above one finished kapa to be installed as part of her piece titled Ka 'Ōhū Loa O Ke Kai Uli (A Great Swell from the Deep Ocean), 2022. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Skateboarding will also have its own section, “which features art painted onto skateboards by Indigenous non-Native Hawaiian artists to illustrate the influence of sports born from surfing and their popularity among youth from Native communities,” says museum representatives.

A multi-media, sculpture installation by environmental filmmaker/director Christopher Kahunahana will be displayed, “consisting of floating translucent tapestry created from found plastic bags,” notes the museum. “The installation brings attention to how plastic bags, a product of fossil fuel, ends up as ocean debris thus a threat to birds and sea life…Ocean patterns will be projected onto the tapestry giving the museum-goers a feeling as if they are under the ocean.”

Ian Joseph Kekoa Kuali’i (Native Hawaiian/Apache), Duke Kahanamoku, hand cut paper with painted verso, 40 x 30.” Courtesy of the artist.

Another important highlight are the 10 cut-paper portraits of legacy surfers installed on what is called the “Legacy Wall” in the exhibition. The artist, Ian Joseph Kekoa Kuali’I, is a multi-disciplinary self-taught artist of Hawaiian/Apache ancestry. In his work, he “fluidly merges urban contemporary art with my Indigenous ancestral iconography and history,” he shares, “drawing from occult symbolism, mysticism, politics and themes of urban decay. From a single sheet of paper using only an X-Acto blade as his tool, my portraits, journal entries and scenes are masterfully rendered in hand cut paper with a blend of loose urban contemporary techniques and collaged found materials.” Ian describes this as, “the meditative process of destroying to create.”

Solomon Robert Nui Enos/Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian), Papa He'e Nalu I ka Wā Akua (Surfing in the Time of the Gods), 2022, Bristol boards, acrylic and oil, 96 x 315". Collection of the artist.

These displays and so much more are offered in the He`e Nalu: The Art and Legacy of Hawaiian Surfing exhibition, currently on view and running through June of 2023.

On View Now
He`e Nalu: The Art and Legacy of Hawaiian Surfing
Heard Museum 2301 N. Central Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 252-8840,
www.heard.org