Artist Statement

Mer Sea is an interdisciplinary exploration of the sea, not just as a physical entity but as a metaphor for the currents within us. The title plays on the dual meaning of the French phrases "merci" and "Mère Sea"—Mother Sea—evoking the ocean as a life-giving force that shapes both land and our inner worlds. This exhibition presents undulating motions and profound depths as a reflection of our artistic birthing of inner emotional landscapes.

Inspired by Iwalani Kaluhiokalani’s family's trans-oceanic narratives and the imagery of new life emerging where lava meets water, the works in this exhibition draw from Polynesian navigation charts, sensory ethnography, synesthesia, and the rhythmic cut-out patterning of Polynesian quilts. Through paintings, a video installation, and paper sculptures, Kaluhiokalani critically engages with historical intersections of European colonization in Oceania while imagining utopian ideas of a borderless, mobile, global society.

Kaluhiokalani’s visual language unfolds like choreography, where the gestures and materials come together to reshape nature and figuration into co-collaborative experiences in situ. Mer Sea invites viewers into otherworldly spaces where sight and touch intersect in a haptic dance with the materiality of paint and color. Its immersive environments bridge the past and present to transform our perceptions and evoke a sense of infinite possibility. 

Kaluhiokalani invites the viewer to immerse themselves in these Protean environments, surrounded by large-scale imagery and "accidental artifacts"—created from repurposed materials integral to her artistic process—that weave together past and present. These pieces evoke sensory-rich experiences that resonate with the body's deep connection to the layered rhythms of nature, transforming our perceptions and guiding us toward "imagined futures" that ebb and flow like the tides. Mer Sea is an exploration of the sea as both a vessel of memory and a realm of boundless possibility, where the movements of the present echo the rhythms of the past. It is a tribute to the ocean's boundless influence and an inquiry into the profound ways in which we navigate our own inner depths and the emotional currents that bind us to one another.

Artist Bio

Iwalani Kaluhiokalani (she/her) is a painter and interdisciplinary artist based in Boston, Massachusetts and Marseille, France. Her work is rooted in the exploration of movement, dance histories, sensory ethnography, diaspora, and trans-oceanic exploration. She creates work which invokes ephemeral ecstasies and dialogues around the body, memory, and time. Kaluhiokalani holds a BFA in Painting with Distinction and Departmental Honors from Massachusetts College of Art and Design 2003 and a certification from the Laban Institute of Movement Studies. She is the founder and teacher of teachers at SmartBody Movement in Brookline, Massachusetts, a center for Classical Pilates and GYROTONIC training. Kaluhiokalani is an active member of Kingston Gallery in Boston and the Feminist/Futurist Collective. She was the recipient of Boston Center for the Arts’ ACTivate residency in 2021, Vermont Studio Center residency in 2023, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant 2023, and recently showed at La Traverse/Catherine Bastide Projects in Marseille, France. Kaluhiokalani’s artwork is included in individual and corporate private collections.