Wailea Ti is Erin Sabado’s watercolor of the same plant that sits outside the south Maui hotels and the family gallery in Wailea Village. He paints color first. The form is the plant as it stands in the heat, not a diagram of one.
Erin grew up in a working studio in Haiku. His father, Philip, is the Molokaʻi painter. Erin’s own work is the contemporary botanicals: ti, ʻōhiʻa, ginger, wiliwili. This one belongs over a kitchen island, a dining table, or any tall quiet wall.
Open edition print, or the original watercolor. By Erin Sabado | Open Edition.
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Artwork Details + Context
In Wailea the afternoon gets into the plant. Fuchsia and burgundy at the leaf edge, gold down the middle, lime at the base like it is holding light. You can feel the heat in it without the sun.
It wants height. Over the kitchen, the dining wall, a hall that gets sky. Not a postcard of south Maui. The ti, still warm, in the house. Watercolor on the original. Acrylic, metal, or canvas when you want it large.
By Erin Sabado | Open Edition