Kailua Village Artists featured artist for the month of September is watercolor artist and digital designer Stefanie Culbertson.
Kailua Village Artists featured artist for the month of September is watercolor artist and digital designer Stefanie Culbertson.
Culbertson has been painting with watercolors over 34 years, after she moved to Hawaii in 1989 from the ‘Old World’, Germany. Her fascination with the lush beauty of this island continues to inspire her art every day, and she has grown deep roots here. She holds a BA in Digital Design and started her own business Tiffany Arts Designs in 2006. Culbertson continuously expands her “Anuenue” (rainbow) and “Fire-Earth-Air-Water” series of watercolors. She loves to interweave legends and a deeper meaning within her watercolor paintings and often hides things within.
Among Culbertson’s featued watercolor paintings are “Anuenue Path of Life”. The rainbow path starts from envisioning life within the sea and continues in green hues of the heart to its rainbow color sequence repeating. Each part of a life stage mastered and moving on to the next. It starts winding shorter and smaller in a circle toward the final sunset. The ocean, beach and palm trees and castle and mountain peaks are the backdrop on the journey through life.
“Awa in Rainbow Spiral Wave”. The rainbow floats in a circle with the awa leaf emerging from the green with its heart shaped leaf. The blues and purple in the spiral path wind out into a breaking wave. The white and black representing the unavoidable, the light and darkness that interweaves our journey through life every day. In the shape of the nautilus is this spiral path of the wave that eventually makes the darkness vanish from the path.
“Parting Sky after Monsoon Rain”, this painting was inspired after the monsoon rains we had up mauka for over a month. The clouds finally parted to reveal this striking moment, seeing the crisp and clear colors of the ocean and sky. It was so moving, Stephanie added the Hokule’a in the center, to acknowledge the sailors out at sea fighting through storms and then being in the calm and serene, living through it.
To meet the artist, Stefanie Culbertson will be working at the gallery on Saturdays, Sept. 9 and 30, and Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023. The Kailua Village Artists Gallery is located at 75-5729 Alii Drive, Suite C-110 in the Kona Marketplace in Kailua-Kona. The gallery is open daily from 10 am – 5 pm. For more information please call 329-6653, visit the website: kailuavillageartists.com or on Facebook: kailuavillageartists.
