Sewell Exhibitions

Juut Salon Permanent Installation

2010-06-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

Napua Gallery, Grand Wailea, Mother's October 2009

2010-06-15T19:18:00.000-07:00

Pacific Center for Photography Exhibition

2010-06-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

Orchid Salon 4 Seasons Hotel permanent installation

2010-06-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

"Vintage Vignettes" 2007

2010-06-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

"Vintage Vignettes: Maui artists with a presence"

In 2007 the Maui Arts and Cultural Center asked me to participate in an exhibition “Vintage Vignettes: Maui artists with a presence”. A group invitational exhibition honoring some of Maui’s favorite active and innovative leaders in the Arts (all over 60) “35 mini retrospectives.”

For “early work” I exhibited the earliest work I could locate. It was a “60 second rapid collage”, a piece from 1962, which I presented in a special peep show illuminated box attached to the rear of a gallery wall. The collage was viewed from a quarter-sized whole in the wall.

My “middle career work” was a re-creation of an Art Maui installation “Dr. Saito’s Office.” For this piece I got permission from gallery director Darrell Orwig to cut a door sized hole in the gallery brick wall and install a functioning door which led to two rooms created out of storage space. The spaces became the offices of the infamous Dr.Edward Saito, an early Maui doctor who “treated young women” with a solar ray apparatus. The first room contained controversial old photos of his patients, his actual files, his old Underwood typewriter and the Solar Ray Apparatus itself. The second room was a recreation of the doctor’s inner treatment room complete with a mannequin wearing only thin nylon panties and socks along with high heel shoes. The exhibit was the source of much discussion; many people attacked me for acknowledging the doctor and his questionable practices.

The “current career work” I chose was a small, mounted, three flat radius screen installation of my popular 2006 one-man show, “Enigma Of The Mill ”.

"Shrine Show" 1998

2010-06-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

Shrine show: Hui No’eau Visual Arts Center, Maui 1997

I created a shrine to the Barbie doll in which I installed six tall black Halogen lamps with a Barbie doll suspended over each lamp. The dolls were hung from a monofilament line giving the effect of dolls floating over the bright light of the lamps. The heat caused them to slowly spin as if they were dancing to the 1950’s dance music which was playing. The dolls were nude except for their high heel shoes and earrings.

At the base of the lamps were collections of fezes (shrine Hats) evoking the concept of shriners worshipping the figures. As a young man in Minneapolis, I had seen Shriners at their conventions with hookers. The exhibit included a questionnaire for people to fill out asking them to list “five ways Barbie has influenced/ affected you”.

And this is what they said:

“ Why didn’t they call her Debbie?

Where was Ken’s penis?

Why weren’t her feet flat?

No belly button?

Why didn’t her legs bend?

She ruined my life!”

-Stella, Maui Age 41

“I feel glad for them. Why? Becauause thay get play’d with by people.”

-Hannah , Maui Age 6 1/2

“It helped me to feel very true lesbian feelings without shame.”
-Joan, Maui Age 39

“My Barbie is very nice and has a lot of mescera. When my brother sees toy story he cuts her heds off”

-Laure n Bangerter, Kula Age 8

“She set me in search of the ideal woman. She has a removable head, which I usually replace with a light bulb. I usually place her in some sort of cage to represent the “Ideal woman’s ” true place in society. She was my center piece in an assemblage called Idee fixe.”

–Curt, Maui Age 41

“Barbie confused me- no pubic hair-no nipples- so I painted it on for her, hence I was confused…….. Blonde hair was the only beauty. Made me think my waist was large. Yuk-despised her. Will never have them for my own kids. p.s I buried Barbie up to her neck in dirt (so just her head with sticking out) than I ran over her with my dirt bike-approx age 11. So I have a twisted mind!”

-C.Martin, Maui Age 26

“I was affected only at the mother of two girls and two boys. I had to keep reinforcing reality to my children. One son did marry a women with a near- Barbie figure. My other son still seeks out his fantasy of that body. My daughters, who owned and played with the “Barbies”, have had to deal with accepting their own natural , beautiful, rounded , lovely bodies ”

- Ann , Maui Age 68

“Barbie was a feminist role model for me-independently wealthy, well-traveled, single (just kept Ken around for practical reasons), fit and strong , and smiled a lot ”

–Sanda Age 59

“I like to take them into the bath. I have tons of clothes for my barbies. There fun to play with. I have five barbies. But I didn’t name them all”

- Judy Age 6

“My children played endlessly with Barbie dolls- I think it was a good, expensive in which they were able to act out real life drama. Where’s Ken? ”

–Mother of two girls, Maui Age 41

“I had an eating disorder”

-Tammy , Maui Age 31

“50’s- No Barbie’s for me, they had breasts!

60’s- No Barbie’s for my children, the Barbie’s were plastic!

70’s- No Barbie’s for play, they were too common!

80’s- No Barbie’s as my children grew, too many materialistic off shoots!

90’s- No Barbie’s now, because “the collection” is too-expensive!”

-Jeanne, Maui Age 57

“Barbie was just too big to fit on the Breyer model horses-but we used her anyway- to make her stay on, we’d break her legs at the hip socket so she could ride a horse. Skipper was better shorter, smaller - still broken. The best dolls had joints-like G.I Joe. The horses were out priority- me and my girlfriends.”

-Susan, Maui Age 34

“ I played with Barbie’s as a young boy! I’m now a world class drag queen!! Koo Koo. Watch out!!!”

-Guava Chiffon, Maui

“She was the forbidden toy(fruit). Only the girls got to play with her in my nursery school. All the little boys played with the trucks and wood blocks. I wanted to play with the girls and the dolls but I was a little boy.”

-Urich, Maui Age 52

“Barbie has made me think that women aren’t perfect if they don’t look like Barbie! Barbie can make or break a positive image about yourself and anyone else”

-Jane , Maui Age 48

“Made/Makes me feel fat and ugly

Makes me and other US women worry more about our looks (lookism)

Makes/Made me feel you have to have long blonde hair to win (succeed)

Makes me worry a lot about the future of American girls”

-Leslie, NY & Maui Age 54

"Feast or Famine" 1998

2010-06-09T18:55:00.000-07:00

Feast or Famine

The Feast or Famine Exhibit at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center featured a cornucopia of world-class artists. Artists were asked to create a piece in any media which explored any aspect of food, as a substance for survival, its use in moderation or indulgence, its beauty and tactility. Tom Sewell’s “Hungary at the Feast” is a mixed media piece a table is set as if for a royal banquet. In addition to the elegant place settings two naked mannequins recline on the table. In the chairs, wrapped in a single strand of barbed wire, are photos of “…helpless hungry, socially disabled, the still racially segregated, the sexually discriminated and the simply dismissed.”

The artist goes on in a handout,” Food starvation is not the only way to die.” There is an empty chair at the table so,” he goes on, “so… each of us wandering by may pause to consider our own position in the community of hallowed souls…” The effect is devastating.

Sitting at one end of the table was Mr. Bill, Tom’s French teacher, dressed in 18^th century French attire complete with a long flowing wig. At the opposite end was Rosalind the zoftig belly dancer in a black evening gown. Throughout the evening Tom would slowly feed Rosalind, while Mr. Bill would remain silent and stationary. Tom collaborated with Katherine Dahl to create the installation.

“Perhaps the opportunity in making “art” eventually becomes the obligation to express that which arises not from the selection of the visual, but rather from the calling and the crying of the heart. This piece is not real. These people are…” -Katherine Dahl

"Enigma at the Mill" 2006

2010-06-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

"Enigma of the Mill"

Maui weekly

Enigma at the Mill

A Maui artist and filmmaker, Sewell’s decade-long fascination with Hawaii’s sugar mills has culminated in this massive multi-media installation project, complete with industrial video production, music accompaniment, and large sculptural elements. Projected images of gigantic sprockets, gears and vats of boiling sugar are synchronized with a polyphonic symphony of machinery to fill the gallery space for a truly unique exhibit. Giant blow-up photographs of machinery in detail draw the viewer into the discovery of color and texture.., the beauty in the beast, as it were.

The Maui News

Memories of sugar mills restored

By Krista Walton

“Incredible.”

After a career in the sugar industry, Brian Ross says he will not see Maui’s mills in the same way since he observed and assisted Maui artist Tom Sewell in creating new images of the mill.

“A few years ago Tom showed me one of his videos, which he had done and put to music,” said Ross, the former manager at Paia Mill who first guided Sewell through the factory. “I’ve been in the mill industry for 40 years, and watching his video was like going to another planet – it was incredible. His work just throws a completely different outlook on what we know as a sugar factory.”

The Maui News Currents

Tom Sewell unravels mystery of sugar mill

By Paul Janes-Brown

Tom Sewell, one of Maui’s most inventive, original and consistently fascinating artists, has worked to unravel the mystery at the mill. His brilliant new show, “Enigma of the mill,” is the most exciting exhibit ever to grace the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Schaefer International Gallery. Sewell’s work is so good; finally, the name international on the gallery fits perfectly. This show is world class in everyway. From the sculptures to the fantastic digital prints, to the state-of-the-art video display in the gallery, this show would be at home in the museum in the world. Its size and scope are extremely ambitious but not beyond Sewell’s prodigious talent. Sewell is an artist in the mold of Man Ray and Marcel Dunchamp, but his vision is more acute and immediately accessible. Sewell has a twinkle in his eye and a keen sense for beauty, which he shows us, exists in the most unlikely places. The show lasts about 45 minutes and it’s one of the quickest and most stimulating 45 minutes the viewer will ever spend. Throughout the production, Sewell provides breathtaking moments. Several times during the opening reception last week, the 200-plus audience members broke into spontaneous applause.

The score for this show was created by compilation of groups like Kronos Quartet, Xploding plastix , Steve Reich , Bob Wareman , Waking the Cobra, Art of Noise, Pable Casals, and most notably original music composed by Maui’s Robert Pollock and performed by the Ebb & Flow Ensemble. The score is so perfect, it’s hard to believe it wasn’t written and created just for this show. This show is a must-see. In fact, everyone in the state should come to Maui to see this show. In this reviewer’s opinion, it’s the most important artistic event in the history of the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Schaefer International Galler. If the rest of the world is as lucky as we are, Sewell will get a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation or some other major philanthropist and take this show on the road to share these glorious images with them.

Letters to the editor

"Enigma of the Mill’ more than worth a visit to MACC"

“I just saw the most wonderful show today-‘Enigma of the Mill’ at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.

Tom Sewell presents the beauty to be found in cane field patterns, in growing sugar crystals and even in such mundane things as peeling paint and rusting machinery.

This beautiful video projected on three walls and set to the throbbing beat of music. It is a wonderful experience, and free! If you enjoy art, go. Thank you, Tom Sewell, for creating such a marvelous piece of art!”

-Al Bayless

Kihei

"Schaefer installation is a must-see exhibition"

“Artist Tom Sewell’s “Enigma of the Mill” installation now showing in the Schaefer Gallery at MACC is a must-see. It is simply beautiful just to look at and listen to with special meaning for the people of Maui. Whether one likes sugar cane growing, its timely theme merging man with machine in nature, as portrayed with great skill, immortalizes a slice of our history. It had to have taken enormous effort by the artist to produce a piece of this magnitude. What an incredible gift Tom has given us.”

-Walter Bruder

Peahi

Others

“You’re a damned genius!” – Bill Mitchelle

“Until Rembrandt painted them, windmills were simply mills, driven by the wind to perform a given task. Through his eyes and painting, we now recognize these mills for their aesthetic form as well.

Anyone who views this exhibition and digital presentation of Puunene and Paia sugar mills will never see again see or experience those mills with the same eyes, ears or hands.

Viewing the movie was an experience unlike any other at the cultural center, for the usual array of familiar artists and patrons was replenished by numerous families with some obvious connection to the mills. Here, for possibly the first time, family members were brought closer and given new insights through art. Recognizable objects, brought to life in a kinetic ballet of focused vision, were transformed from simply a place of work to a work of art. Rust, grease, pealing paint, mud stains and all provide a rich backdrop for the noble worker. A proud father sharing his daily toils with his family.

For those who ask, “What is it?” when viewing color, forms and textures presented in an abstract painting, this exhibit provides an answer. Viewers are given a recognizable link between their daily routine and aesthetics. Through the eyes and focus of this artist, participants of all backgrounds and interests find new ways of seeing their mill, their community and beyond. ”

-Dick Nelson

"20 going on 21" 2009

2010-06-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

The Contemporary Museum

Honolulu

Tom participated in “20 going on 21”: Honoring the Past, Celebrating the Present, Looking to the Future- An Exhibition of Contemporary Hawaii’s Artists honoring the 20^th anniversary at the Contemporary Museum of Honolulu. 20 artists were selected from a very competitive pool of submissions by three jurors, Melissa Chiu, Director, Asia Society Museum and Vice President, Global Art Programs, Asia Society, New York, New York; Lawrence Rinder, Director, of The Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas.

The museum selected two of Sewell’s works. ”I can no longer remain silent”, a controversial mixed media anti-war statement (rejected by Art Maui the previous year-featuring the faces of 3,000 American troops killed in Iraq). And a special edition of “Enigma of the Mill” shown on three 42 flat inch plasma video screens attached to the wall in a special room of the gallery. The Enigma piece was a scaled down version of the magestic 2006 one-man show at the Schaefer International Gallery at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.