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WELCOME

My name is Ken Nakamura.  I paint for people who are drawn to beauty, memory, and meaning, not status or price tags.

This site isn't just a gallery - it's a home for artwork that wants to be lived with.  My goal is to make thoughtful, skillfully made paintings available to anyone who resonates with them, especially those who may have felt that "real art was out of reach.

Thank you for being here.

My Journey

     I am he who came from beautiful Kalihi Valley, on the island of Oahu, who traveled through and lived in eight states in the great land called America, walked through a diesel polluted town in a city just liberated in East Germany for forty days and nights and traveled up the highest peak in Europe called Mont Blanc. I am he who dreams of inspiring people through two-dimensional arts even though no one goes to see two-dimensional arts at all and only purchase one-dimensional art, mesmerized by the minutiae of being entertained and decorated.

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     I am he who has lived on this wonderful planet for thirty-five million seven twenty-seven thousand, six hundred, ninety-three minutes, as of July 20, 2022, at 8 :59 pm. I am he who has three wonderful children and learned that they will be here when I won't, which means I will still be here,

   

 

 

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 I am he who walked in a seaport city called Penang not able to say anything to anybody because Cantonese, Mandarin and Malay sounded the same and they thought I spoke in Japanese or Korean which I don't.

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After a long hiatus from painting, I returned to the easel with a renewed sense of purpose, not as a young artist chasing after trends, but as someone shaped by time, experience, and reflection.

My artistic journey began in the early 1980s with formal recognition, including purchase awards from the Hawaii State Foundation for the Culture and the Arts and the Contemporary Art Center.  But in 1985, I stepped away to pursue other interests, including traveling and meeting different cultures and people. For nearly three decades, I rarely painted, though I never stopped observing like an artist. 

A brief reawakening in the mid-1980s gave way to what I call hibernation, lasting until 2014.  Retirement in 2022 offered me time and mental clarity to paint full-time.  Since then, I've dedicated myself to building a body of work grounded in story, symbolism, and the spiritual connection between people and place.

My paintings often explore paradox, the visible and the invisible, the remembered and the forgotten, the natural and the dreamlike.  Through layered textures, dramatic light, and rooted compositions, I try to give shape to the emotional terrain beneath everyday experience. 

I currently live and work in Hawai'i, drawing inspiration from its landscapes, light, and layered histories. 

  • Education:   BFA and MFA in Drawing and Painting, University of Hawaii, Manoa 

  • Work:         Retired Teacher, "Drawing and Painting" and "Introduction to the Visual Arts"

  • Favorite art styles:  Chinese landscape painting with poems, epic landscape paintings (Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Caspar David Friedrich), Color Field (Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Wayne Thiebold) Early Modern art (Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Paul Klee, Kandinski), Dutch art (Rembrandt, Vermeer), Barogue art (Carravaggio).​​

Kalihi Valley 1
Mont Blanc
My View of the Universe

Contact Kenneth Nakamura

Honolulu, Hawaii

artlookingforhome@gmail.com

Affordable Original Paintings

©2022 by Art Looking for a Home. Proudly created with Wix.com

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