Family Business
2024-PRESENT | WHITE PENCIL ON BLACK PAPER | APPROX 4x6 INCHES EACH
These small-scale white pencil drawings on black paper, each capturing a splash in midair, depict the aftermath of popular water antics at the beach in Hawai‘i and Polynesia: the Manu, Coffin, Watermelon, Suicide, Can-Opener——all examples of what is locally called “bombing.” Family Business is meant to acknowledge that these stylish gestures——leaping, showing off, pushing water to its limit——are passed down, repeated, and rehearsed.
At the same time, the title nods to family life in the Pacific. Bombing, in this light, becomes not just a style of jumping but a strategy for making space, establishing a signature, even if it disappears into memory. I chose white pencil on black paper for the elegiac, almost ghostly, quality of the combination, and the Koa frames fill me with gratitude and reverence. They were given to me by my friend and his stepmom after her father, who made the frames, passed away. The drawings are meant to be exhibited like family photos.
That the term “bomb” carries a heavy weight in the Pacific is never overstated. Across the 20th century and into the present, the region continues to endure decades of military testing and occupation. Entire islands were evacuated or erased.
