Makawalu Kapaʻōhua is a visual articulation of the Hawaiian concept of makawalu — often translated as “eight eyes,” and understood more fully as the capacity to see from multiple perspectives at once. The work is designed to communicate a way of perceiving complexity: holding many viewpoints simultaneously rather than collapsing them into a single dominant frame.

The piece uses repetition, rhythm, and variation to make this mode of seeing visible. Created through hand-press relief print techniques and painted directly onto acrylic panels, the work draws from the material logic of kapa-making, where pressure, pigment, and pattern operate as carriers of meaning. The process itself is intentional — emphasizing attentiveness, accumulation, and the relational nature of form.

Geometric elements such as circles, crescents, and triangles recur across the surface in layered sequences. Rather than functioning as symbols to be decoded, these forms operate as signals — prompting viewers to notice pattern, difference, and relationship. The grid structure holds balance and multiplicity at the same time, suggesting that clarity does not come from simplification, but from learning how to see more.

Purchased by OluKai for its Queen’s Marketplace store in Waikoloa, Makawalu Kapaʻōhua functions as a visual statement within a contemporary commercial space — affirming Indigenous ways of seeing as relevant, active, and instructive. The work communicates that perspective itself matters: how one sees shapes how one acts, decides, and relates.

In this sense, the piece is not simply an artwork, but a communicative framework — one that invites ongoing reflection on perception, responsibility, and the discipline of seeing well..