HĪHĪMANU SERIES
Artist Collection
Size: 11” x 17”
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Board, series
2020
Hīhīmanu — Moving with Grace and Protection
This series honors the hīhīmanu — the manta ray — a revered and sacred presence in Kanaka Maoli tradition. Known for its grace, strength, and expansive movement through the ocean, the hīhīmanu is often understood as a guardian being and a reminder of the deep intelligence that lives within the natural world.
The design intention is to encourage deeper seeing — to look beneath the surface and recognize the presence of ancestral guidance, protection, and meaning that moves quietly through all things. Rather than focusing on representation alone, the work reflects the qualities embodied by the hīhīmanu: steadiness, fluidity, and the ability to move powerfully without disturbance.
Through flowing forms, layered surfaces, and rhythmic motion, the works echo the manta ray’s soaring movement through both water and spirit. The imagery invites a slower pace of looking, allowing viewers to sense what is held below the surface — where protection is not forceful, but constant and attentive.
This series offers the hīhīmanu as a way of thinking as much as a subject. It invites reflection on how guidance, strength, and freedom can coexist, and how ancestral presence often reveals itself not through spectacle, but through quiet, sustained movement and care.
THE PROCESS
The Hīhīmanu series is a collection of acrylic painting studies on canvas board, created as part of Herman Piʻikea Clark’s ongoing exploration of Indigenous abstraction. These works investigate the visual potential of hīhīmanu—the manta ray—as both a stylized form and a cultural metaphor. Clark approaches the manta ray not only as an elegant oceanic figure, but as a symbol deeply embedded in Kanaka Maoli epistemologies, where it represents spiritual presence, protection, and ancestral movement across the sea. His intention in this series was to experiment with the abstraction of the ray’s form while honoring its cultural significance. Through rhythmic contours, layered compositions, and modulated fields of color, the works balance the visual with the conceptual—inviting reflection on how abstract design can carry genealogical meaning and cultural intelligence. While the results offer strong visual impact, the heart of the series lies in its speculative approach to translating Indigenous values through form. The Hīhīmanu series reflects Clark’s broader commitment to visual storytelling grounded in place, lineage, and the sovereign possibilities of Indigenous design.
