In the future, it’s all Surf and no Turf. The issue of global warming and rising tides asks the question “What will we eat, as our food supply changes?” Four New York–based women artists have tackled the prospective dilemma in the pop-up gallery show “Flooded” in Waikiki, Hawaii. The show is the first part of “Visions of the Future,” an aggressive programming initiative in celebration of the upcoming second Honolulu Biennial in March of 2019, to be curated by Isabella Ellaheh Hughes, a director and founder of the Biennial.

Art director Allie Wist, photographer Heami Lee, food stylist C.C. Buckley and prop stylist Rebecca Bartoshesky have banded together to imagine fine dining in a new wet world without the barbeque. The fare may be salty, but it sure is beautiful.

There are 13 large-format photographs in the pop-up, formerly a retail store, along Waikiki’s Luxury Row. The colors of an aquatic palette are dramatically dense and dark, punctuated by bright reflections, like the echoes of sunlight off the sea. My eye and my stomach detected a sense of foreboding; then again, rising tides and a sea-kale Caesar salad have the same effect.

Untitled (Flooded Series), photo by Heami Lee

One busy abstraction stole the show. Swimming on an iris of brighter blues, encrusted shells of clams and oysters and serpentine seaweeds produced the call of an ancient Olympian mythology. The work is further proof that Mother Nature is the greatest artist of all.

My favorite piece, breaking away from the dining room, was a white-and-blue-patterned dinner plate floating brightly in the dark opaque waters of the East River. Sink or swim.
On these small Hawaiian Islands in the middle of the vast Pacific, I have observed a sea change in the perception of the arts over the last five years. While fine art has always been appreciated, art-making has been the domain of hobbyists and children. The international Honolulu Biennial and the annual, locally focused CONTACT show presented by the Pu’uhonua Society have elevated appreciation and awareness here. The respect for contemporary art, in the heart of the culturally dynamic Ring of Fire, is rising and flooding.