Compassion and empathy in the face of pain and death inform the work of Honolulu-based artist Deborah Nehmad, whose works are on view at the East Hawaii Cultural Center from this Saturday to Jan. 31, 2025, with an opening at 6 p.m. on Friday.
Compassion and empathy in the face of pain and death inform the work of Honolulu-based artist Deborah Nehmad, whose works are on view at the East Hawaii Cultural Center from this Saturday to Jan. 31, 2025, with an opening at 6 p.m. on Friday.
In the exhibition “Shattered,” Nehmad addresses the plague of gun violence in America.
“I didn’t set out to make this the focus of my practice when I completed my first piece on the subject in 2008” she said in a press release. “(But) as gun violence … has transformed the experience of attending school from one of making friends and learning to an environment that incites terror in students and their parents, I couldn’t focus on anything else.”
Nehmad’s artworks — described as “visceral” and “poignant” by fellow artists and critics — utilize handmade Nepalese paper, graphite and beeswax that she stitches and burns holes in to graphically represent gun fatalities.
Nehmad, who was born and raised on Long Island in New York and has degrees from Smith College and Georgetown University, did not begin her career as an artist. She was first an attorney and activist who came to Hawaii in 1984 while working in the legal field.
A year later, a series of life-altering events turned her toward art, and she subsequently received an MFA in printmaking from University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1998.
Her work can be found in many prestigious collections including the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Hawaii State Art Museum and the New York Museum of Modern Art.
For more information, visit EHCC online at ehcc.org, call 961-5711, or visit EHCC at 141 Kalakaua St. in Hilo.
Gallery and office hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, and the gallery is open Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.