Hawai‘i - Its Land and Culture: Photographs by Elaine Mayes
October 3, 2003 - January 6, 2004

Photographer Elaine Mayes began the body of work represented in this exhibition in 1989, when she spent two weeks in Hawai‘i photographing the land and beauty of the islands. In 1991-1992 Mayes received a Guggenheim fellowship and was able to spend one month each on O‘ahu, Maui, Hawai‘i, Kaua‘i, Moloka‘i and Lana’i. During these and subsequent visits, she has documented the environmental and cultural richness of the Islands and their people.

Mayes’ photographs tell a unique story of Hawai‘i. The exhibition images coincide with extensive changes in Hawaii’s economic and social situation. The departure of the sugar and pineapple industries, increases in population, the intensive development of tourism and the erosion of traditional local retail business became the backdrop for Mayes’ investigation. The artist was able to bring to life the celebrations and rituals that she observed and to offer glimpses into certain disappearing ways of life.

Mayes received her BA degree in 1958 from Stanford University and studied photography and painting at the San Francisco Art Institute with John Collier, Jr., Paul Hassel and Minor White. After a seven-year commercial photography career she taught photography at the University of Minnesota; was on the founding faculty of Hampshire College; taught at Bard College, Pratt Institute and for almost 20 years at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she was Chair of her department before retirement from teaching in 2001. Mayes currently resides in Oregon and in New York City.

Her most recent project has been production and publication of It Happened In Monterey, Modern Rock’s Defining Moment, (Britannia Press), a book of photographs and writings about the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, which she photographed on assignment for Hullabaloo magazine. She also has continued photographing, producing videotapes and working on a book about Hawai‘i.