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A work from Linda Kane’s “Lost Landscape” series, on exhibit at Andrew Rose Gallery

Art Seen!

by Kai Andersen | Modern Luxury Hawai'i magazine | February 10, 2012

Every hour on a given day, 400 people and 1,200 cars pass by Pauahi Tower on downtown Honolulu’s Bishop Street. Though the stats sound like they could be from some random traffic study, those numbers represent a huge potential for Hawaii’s art scene. And it’s exactly at this dynamic location that Andrew Rose Gallery, Honolulu’s latest venue for contemporary, local artists, opened this past November.

For years, Bishop Street has brought together people from different walks of life—from business execs to students to visitors. “It’s a nexus that is central to everybody’s daily life across the islands,” explains Andrew Rose, founder and owner of the eponymously named gallery. Moreover, the locale is also at the center of the broader downtown arts community, extending from Chinatown to the Hawaii State Art Museum (HiSAM) and Iolani Palace.

Rose decided to open the space only after careful consideration and extensive research, a practice he adopted after having relocated to Oahu in 2005 following a successful career in the visual arts in New York. The Vassar grad recalls, in particular, a Hawaiian ‘olelo no‘eau (poetical saying) that he learned while a volunteer at the Waikiki Aquarium, which translates as “Knowledge is gained by patient observation.” Rose took the message to heart, eventually leading him to count passersby on Bishop Street. With the facts right in front of him, he realized the thoroughfare offered a burgeoning, potential audience for the arts along the lines of Chinatown’s popular First Friday. “Every day is like First Friday on Bishop Street,” he says.

Into this dynamic environment Rose has brought together a diverse roster of local artists with whom he has developed relationships over the years, including painter Carol Bennett, mixed media artist Bradley Capello, photographer Wayne Levin, printmaker Abigail Romanchak, sculptor Mamoru Sato, kapa artisan Dalani Tanahy and Kauai-based artist Wayne Zebzda.

“I’m honored these artists have put their faith and trust in me to promote and place their work,” says Rose, an artist in his own right who holds an MFA in painting and an M.S. in art history from Pratt Institute.

Additionally, Rose has immersed himself in Hawaii’s visual arts history, much of which remains unpublished and unknown to the greater public. “I’m opening my gallery with an understanding of the responsibility to continue the sincere efforts of previous generations of artists in Hawaii,” says Rose, who privately dealt in local artists’ works prior to the gallery’s opening.

In that light, the gallery continues in the legacy of artist-run galleries in Honolulu dating back to the 1970s and into the Chinatown renaissance. Rose’s personal contribution to this lineage is to help share the artists’ work with a larger, worldwide audience. To do so, Rose has taken an approach that reflects the culture of the islands instead of imposing an outside, metropolitan perspective.

Though some could consider living on an island as a limitation for someone involved in the international art scene, “the horizon represents endless possibility,” says Rose, who once worked under renowned fashion photographer Bruce Weber. “And now, more than ever, Oahu lives up to its name as the Gathering Place with Honolulu as the Crossroads of the Pacific. andrewrosegallery.com