Artist Steven Kean shares inspiration and upcoming exhibit at Loʻi Gallery

Steven Kean makes art that celebrates waves, palm trees and some of the iconic places of Hawaiʻi. Generally the printmaker’s art is black and white, but sometimes it is shades of blue or aqua.

Kean designed art for the Vans World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach in 2017. He has also been commissioned to create pieces for Foodland Hawaiʻi, Google, Starbucks, and OluKai, among other brands.

Kean is one of three artists who will be featured at American Savings Bank’s Loʻi Gallery, which opens to the public on Feb. 21. The Loʻi Gallery runs for 12 weeks and features artwork from Kean as well as George Evan Davis and Sasha Roberts.

The Loʻi Gallery is located on the first floor of American Savings Bankʻs Campus Branch, located at 300 N. Beretania St., just outside of Honolulu's Chinatown, and 20% of sales for the featured artists will benefit a local nonprofit selected by ASB. For this gallery, the nonprofit is the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.

For Kean, most days start with checking the surf. 

“I do have things that are lined up in my schedule, but I try to build around: ʻOK, can I get in the water today?’ ”  he said. “Because a lot of this work that comes out of me is a direct reflection of that time in the water or around the water.”

On Feb. 12, when Kean spoke with Aloha State Daily, he had spent the morning at a school. Kean is a teaching artist for the Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts and is currently working with fourth and fifth graders through a residency at Waialua Elementary School, near his house. 

Kean had always liked working with wood, he said. Originally, Kean helped a family friend frame houses. Then, he did a bit of wooden sculpture in college. In 2014, he was considering graduate school and did an independent study in printmaking through the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. 

“It was just for myself because I was wanting to build up my portfolio,” he said. “I was enrolled for one semester. I ended up doing it for a year and a half because I liked it so much.” 

At first, Kean etched into metal. His advisor, Charlie Cohen, who was the head of the printmaking department, then suggested woodcut, he said. 

“And that was it,” Kean said. “It was like: OK, this is what I'm going to be doing.” 

Kean draws inspiration from the ocean, especially surfing and “just the environment of Hawaiʻi, in general,” he said.  

“For me, when I'm surfing or swimming or anything in the ocean, that's when my mind feels most still and at ease,” he said. “It's a similar feeling when I'm creating the artwork.”

He graduated with a degree in art education from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and started teaching high school art classes. Then, he sold everything and moved to Hawaiʻi.

“I was ready for a change,” he said. 

Kean moved to Australia and took a painting class before eventually returning to Hawaiʻi as a dishwasher. 

“So I went from teaching high school students to being trained by a 16-year-old kid how to wash dishes at Lei Lei’s Bar and Grill at Turtle Bay,” he said. “Great, great restaurant. We were just in there not too long ago.”

Kean “climbed the ladder” to doing food prep, cooking, waiting tables, and bartending, he said. He also worked as a substitute teacher. Eventually, Kean got a job teaching with the Honolulu Museum of Art. Then, a part-time teaching position at Mililani Mauka Elementary School. Today, he is part of the teaching artist roster for Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.

The Loʻi Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily from Feb. 21 through May 9. Visitors can park in the customer parking lot at the bank, which is located at 300 N. Beretania St. in Downtown Honolulu.

To purchase Kean’s art, go to the Loʻi Gallery or keanarts.com. Kean’s art is also available at select brick-and-mortar locations, including Roberta Oaks Hawaiʻi in Chinatown, Magnolia Hawaiʻi at Kāhala Mall, Aesthetic Hawaiʻi Gallery in Kailua, and Polu Gallery in Haleʻiwa. 

Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.