PILINA
Private Collection
Size: 12” x 12”, Series of 10
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas, series
2018
Pilina takes its starting point from Hawaiian understandings of relationship as the foundation of knowledge, action, and responsibility. The word pilina refers to connection, association, and relationship — not as abstract ideals, but as lived conditions that shape how people, places, and decisions are held together.
Rather than illustrating harmony, the work explores how lōkahi is practiced: how balance is maintained among people, land, ocean, and spirit through ongoing attention, mutual care, and responsibility. The layered forms and rhythmic lines function as a visual way of thinking through relational systems — showing how no single element stands alone, and how change in one part of the system affects the whole.
In this sense, Pilina operates as a visual inquiry into collective identity. It reflects the understanding that identity is not individual or self-contained, but formed through relationship — across generations, across place, and across visible and unseen connections. The painting makes relational structure legible, inviting viewers to consider not only what is present, but how elements are held in balance.
Created in 2018, Pilina serves as an example of how Indigenous relational frameworks can be translated into visual form to support reflection, alignment, and responsible action. The work does not propose unity as sameness, but as a dynamic condition that must be continually attended to — a principle that extends beyond the artwork into teaching, collaboration, and organizational life.
THE PROCESS
Pilina was created through a layered process that merges traditional Polynesian techniques for relief printing on tapa cloth with contemporary acrylic painting. By combining these methods, Herman Piʻikea Clark explores the dynamic space between customary practice and modern expression—bringing ancestral processes into conversation with present-day materials. The relief printing technique draws upon the methods historically used in the decoration of kapa or tapa, where carved wooden boards imprint rhythmic, symbolic forms onto cloth. In Pilina, this approach becomes both visual and conceptual groundwork—anchoring the piece in cultural memory and genealogical connection. Over these imprinted foundations, Clark applied layers of acrylic paint, using translucent washes and gestural linework to build depth and movement. The interplay between printed pattern and painted surface creates a visual language of relationship—pilina—expressing the entangled, layered, and enduring connections between people, places, and generations. This hybrid process reflects Clark’s broader practice of Indigenous abstraction, where innovation emerges through respect for tradition. Pilina becomes not only a visual statement, but a tactile and temporal act of cultural continuity.
