MANU ULA
Private Collection
Size: 24” x 24” x 1”
Medium: Acrylic Paint on Birch Panel
2024
Drawing from the ʻōlelo noʻeau “He noio, ʻāʻe ʻale no ke kai loa” — like the noio bird skimming far-reaching waves — this series honors a native Hawaiian seabird known for precision, attentiveness, and the ability to maintain orientation across great distances.
The work uses the noio not as illustration but as a way of thinking through a practice of seeing — how clarity emerges, how course is adjusted, and how excellence is practiced rather than claimed.
The same principles inform Clark’s teaching, consulting, and collaborative practice: slowing perception, surfacing underlying conditions, and responding with intention rather than reaction.
Private Collection
THE PROCESS
The Manu ʻUla series consists of 12" x 12" paintings on acrylic panels, created as an exploration of spatial dualities grounded in Kanaka Maoli philosophy. In this body of work, Herman Piʻikea Clark employs a restrained palette—anchored in white—to investigate the dynamic tension between positive and negative space within the painted field. White becomes more than a color; it functions as an active agent in shaping visual relationships, allowing form and emptiness to coexist in dialogue. Through this approach, Clark engages the symbolic realms of Hina and Kū—feminine and masculine energies, receptive and assertive forces. The painted surface becomes a site of balance and exchange, where opposing principles find rhythm and interdependence. Each panel operates as a compact meditation on movement, stillness, and breath—expressed through gestural marks, layered translucency, and shifting compositions. The clarity of the format, paired with the subtlety of visual interaction, invites viewers to reflect on what is revealed and what is withheld, what asserts and what yields. Manu ʻUla continues Clark’s inquiry into Indigenous abstraction, using minimal form and symbolic resonance to express complex cultural and spiritual relationships.
