The School for Advanced Research welcomed Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) and Apache mixed-media artist Ian Kuali’i as the 2019 Ronald and Susan Dubin Native Artist Fellow. A mid-career self-taught artist, Kuali’i spent a decade in New York working within the contemporary urban art community, and is well-known for his hand-cut paper works. He explains that his “hand-cut method is a meditative process of ‘destroying to create,’ while exploring ideas of indigeneity, modern progress, biodiversity and the foundation of one’s own history.”

More recently, he has been transforming his art practice to speak to both environmental and human conditions through interactive public art. Kuali’i utilizes both natural and artificial features of the landscape to develop ephemeral and site-specific installations, which he refers to as Earth Works/Land Art, and sees as a hybrid between traditional and contemporary art. Kuali’i comments, “My art practice has evolved into a reflection of my personal journey, a dichotomy between urban grit and ancestral spirit, chaotic energy and refined control, ultimately unifying the delicate and rough in symbiotic representation.”

Value: $2,000