Guest Faculty Lecture: Betsy Alwin & Hiroki Morinoue

Hiroki Morinoue

Born in 1947, in Holualoa on the Island of Hawaii, Hiroki Morinoue received his BFA degree from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now CCA) in 1973. Traveling to Japan in 1976 through 1982, he studied sumi brush painting with Koh Ito Sensei and Japanese woodblock printmaking, Mokuhanga with Takashi Okubo Sensei. Hiroki and Setsuko Morinoue established Studio 7 Fine Arts Gallery in November 1979, as the first and now longest standing contemporary art gallery in Hawaii. A humble space in a small village with a charmed history, the gallery holds an open-ended mission: to create and promote Contemporary Art. For Hiroki the landscape of Hawaii, its light, rocks, skies, and water has deeply influenced his work alongside the aesthetic of Japanese arts, crafts and landscaped gardens, which is prevalent in his work. In all of Morinoue’s work there is a compelling sense of place, curiosity and dialogue between the art and its viewer. He is a patient observer of nature, the rhythms of the ocean shoreline, the fluidity of lava flows, patterns of light on water, using symbols as suggestive messages and patterns from nature. He transcends these observations in various mediums, including watercolor, oil, acrylic and mix media paintings, monotypes, sculptures, photography, ceramics and Mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock prints). Hiroki Morinoue has shown widely in the United States and Japan. He has completed several major public art commissions, including projects at the Honolulu Public Library, and for the Hawaii Convention Center in 1996-97 where he executed a 90 foot mural titled Mauka, Makai. His work can also be viewed at Pahoa High School Library and First Hawaiian Bank. Morinoue’s work is represented in the collections of The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, The Honolulu Academy of Arts, The Hawaii State Foundation for Culture and the Arts, Neiman-Marcus in Honolulu & Chicago, Verizon Hawaii, Achenbach Foundation of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The National Parks, Maryland, Ueno No Mori Museum, Tokyo, the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA. and many private commissions and collections.

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Betsy Alwin

Visiting Director of Ceramics and Expanded Media

Betsy Alwin is a sculptor working across mediums. She has two decades of teaching and curriculum experience including serving as the Dean of Skowhegan School of Painting & Drawing for several years. She attended Skowhegan, holds an MFA from Illinois State University, a BFA in Sculpture and a BA in Spanish language from Minnesota State University. Her work has been exhibited widely, including the Berkshire Botanical Gardens (Mass MoCA), the National Botanic Gardens in Washington D.C., AIR Gallery, New York, The Phipps Center, Hudson WI, the Waiting Room Gallery, Edina, MN, Burnet Fine Art Advisory, Wayzata, MN and Rubine Red Gallery in Palm Springs, CA. Public commissions include sculptures at the Onoden Elementary School in Tokyo, Japan, Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, MN and Silverwood Park in St. Anthony, MN. She is the recipient of numerous awards including a 2022 Artist Individual Support Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Alwin recently served as co-curator with Steve Locke for the exhibition Distance: Works on Paper at Dorsky Gallery in Long Island City, NY. Her work will be featured in the Clio Art Fair in New York City this May. Alwin is a member of the Minneapolis collective Rosalux Gallery and exhibits her work at Rubine Red in Palm Springs, CA

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