In the Studio: Abigail Kahilikia Romanchak

Abigail Kahilikia Romanchak is an artist from Waiohuli, Hawai'i, and a 2024 Joan Mitchell Fellow. We interviewed her about her work and creative practice in February 2025.

I work mostly with ink on paper. My chosen medium, printmaking, is guided by transferring images from a matrix—a physical object like a woodblock or metal plate onto another desired surface. As a printmaker I am committed to executing work layered with rich mark making, allowing me to share the kaona or hidden wisdom that often resides in the depths below a seemingly intelligible surface.

I want to create visually arresting work that shares an impactful story about the rapidly changing landscape of my birthplace, Hawai’i. As a contemporary artist, I feel motivated to make a creative contribution that archives the past and preserves the present.

I honor and study the brilliant craftsmanship that my kupuna (ancestors) brought to their art making. Consistent with their approach, my materials and implements of choice are part of contemporary life and resources accessible to me, such as electric power tools, plywood, oil based etching inks, handmade paper, and an etching press. My responsibility as an artist, as I see it, is to create work that contributes to the preservation and continuity of my culture.

My studio is located in rural Waiohuli on the island of Maui. I co-designed this 500-square-foot studio, situated at an elevation of 3,200 feet, with my brother/architect. It was built on a family homestead that provides the perfect amount of quiet—which is instrumental to fostering my productivity, creativity and contemplation.

My work generally begins with an idea influenced by an environmental threat or observation. I often use scientific data or mapping to inform my visual content. An example of this working process is illustrated in my 2019 Kāhea series. This large-scale installation of collagraph prints responded to the rapid decline and near extinction of two of Maui’s most endemic native birds. Kāhea, “a call,” tells the story of this disappearing bird population. In 1987, the last remaining male O’o bird on Kaua'i called to his mate. His song went unanswered, and now his call is gone, too. The symphony of Hawai'i’s birds is disappearing, and this mele of our land is dying. To date, seventy-two percent of Hawai'i's endemic land birds have gone extinct.

In Kāhea, I ask my viewer to see the birdsongs of the 'Akohekohe and Kiwikiu, two of Maui's most endangered bird species. Using endemic and native Hawaiian bird spectrograms—three-dimensional visualizations of sounds measuring time, frequency and pitch—I created a printed calligraphy of the avian world we are losing.

If we continue on our present course, our grandchildren will never know these beautiful birdsongs. As temperatures rise with global warming and Native forest bird refuges become uninhabitable, within our lifetime most Hawaiian Honeycreepers such as the 'I'iwi, Kiwikiu, and 'Akohekohe are expected to go extinct. Kāhea now belongs to the Smithsonian American Art Museum permanent collection.

Ke Ano is another body of work that relates to the rapidly changing landscape of my birthplace, in this case by honoring the silence of Haleakala crater. This installation of layered woodcuts is inspired by spectrograms of silence specific to Haleakala crater, documented by acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. Hempton believes, "silence is an endangered species on the verge of extinction and by listening to natural silence, we feel connected to the land, to our evolutionary past and to ourselves."

For me, Haleakala crater is one of the last remaining places on Maui devoid of human noise. Through the tactile transfer of audio to visual language, I hope these printed impressions will inspire a contemplative inner silence as well.

In 2013, I considered the relationship between micro and macro scenarios in Hawai’i with the print series He Hōʻike no ke ola, which is an up-close look at the interconnected structure of diatoms- microscopic indicators of health and wellbeing in ocean ecosystems. Marine food chains collapse when diatoms are unable to thrive. This causes irreparable damage to reefs and other habitats upon which land and water systems rely, making islands vulnerable, and in some cases, uninhabitable to marine life. The complex networks of the diatom cause us to ponder the far-reaching ramifications of unsustainable practices.

These microscopic maps of wellness or destruction in our Hawaiian ocean waters have many parallels to the lives of native Hawaiians. Before colonization, native Hawaiians lived intertwined in a vibrant relationship with our shores, reefs, and ocean. Though many Hawaiians have resurrected traditional practices or evolved to remain connected to our culture and the land, as a people we are not thriving as we once were. The death rate among native Hawaiians increased rapidly after their first contact with Western foreigners. Estimates show that 1 in 17 Native Hawaiians died within two years of western contact in Hawai’i, and by 1840, the native Hawaiian population declined by 84%. Thus, the disintegrating, yet deeply connected diatoms also represent the struggle for Hawaiians to maintain and protect the land and oceans that are essential to our culture. He Hōʻike no ke Ola is dedicated to my father-in-law, Dr. Paul Jokiel, for his lifetime of research on climate change and marine thermal tolerance.

It has been a very busy time for me in my studio. I was recently approached by curator Lance Fung, past-curator of the Venice Biennale, to create artwork for an international project titled, Constellations H20, which explores global water challenges through art to raise awareness and encourage meaningful action. Constellations H20 sheds light on critical water issues such as scarcity, rising sea levels, and pollution. I am so honored and humbled to be participating alongside artists I have admired for years including, Citra Sasmita (Bali, Indonesia), Alexis Rockman (USA), and Carlos Estevez (Cuba). The new work for Constellations H20, created by twelve visionary artists from various countries and island communities, presents profound and personal narratives, inspiring global reflection and tangible action for sustainability.

My new work for Constellations H20 will focus on Hawai'i’s vulnerability to climate change. I am interested in how scientists use tree rings to provide clues about past climate conditions. Wai, a layered woodcut print, will depict microscopic views of tree ring patterns during wet and dry seasons. Essentially, these intricate marks are a historical record of weather patterns over time. Wider rings signify abundant rain, while narrow rings indicate harsher conditions like drought. These carved lines will memorialize a shift in climate affecting not only Hawai'i but cherished environments all over the world.

I also have been invited by Hawai'i-based curator Healoha Johnston, recently recognized as a Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellow, to contribute new work to a multi-venue traveling exhibition titled Te Va Hina over the next five years. This 8,000 square foot exhibition will celebrate intergenerational and ancestral relationships that guide contemporary Pacific Island identity, health, and well being across diverse genders and praxis of scholars, artists and activists. For this traveling exhibition, I plan to create a large-scale installation composed of 370 photogravure prints that will retell a forgotten story of resistance and historical injustice in Hawai'i.

I hope my work offers a unique perspective by sharing conceptual artwork that asserts a Hawaiian sense of identity and culture. Understanding the parallel and complementary roles of science and art, of anthropologist and artist, as well as finding ways to invoke ideas about change and continuity in the natural landscape and human culture, are not only central themes in my work but also an exchange I hope my viewer has when they encounter my work. As a Native Hawaiian artist, I seek to perpetuate culture not through traditional means, but contemporary ones, so that it may endure for generations to come. I want my work to be an invitation to explore the boundaries between marking, claiming, and making the unseen and overlooked ultimately visible.

Interview and editing by Jenny Gill. Learn more about Abigail Kahilikia Romanchak’s work at abigailromanchak.com.