Lehuauakea, a Kanaka Maoli artist and practitioner of kapa, or Native Hawaiian bark clothmaking, felt known as to reclaim the apply — which was almost worn out by the 1900s as the US illegally annexed the territory — after they moved away from residence to Oregon throughout highschool.
Years later, Lehuauakea splits their time between Santa Fe, on “the continent,” and the Island of Hawaiʻi, the place they grew up. Lehuauakea gathers, soaks, and beats tree bark, often from the wauke or paper mulberry tree, to create kapa, which they dye with pure pigments to kind large-scale installations, textiles, and experimental mixed-media works.
Final month, Lehuauakea grew to become the second recipient of the Walker Youngbird Basis’s twice-annual $15,000 grant for rising Native American artists, which can even put together them for a solo exhibition on the New York Metropolis gallery Nunu High-quality Artwork in 2026.
Lehuauakea made “Still Finding My Way Back Home” (2025) for the Hawai’i Triennial 2025: Aloha Nō.
The muse was launched final November by Reid Walker, a communications skilled and member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations of North Dakota. Muscogee-Creek painter George Alexander was the grant’s inaugural recipient.
Lehuauakea is among the many few kapa practitioners beneath the age of 30 working within the artwork kind as we speak, in line with the muse.
Walker stated in a press release in March that Lehuauakea’s integration of ancestral custom, environmental stewardship, and themes of queer Indigenous identification serves as a “compelling example of how Native artists are not only preserving cultural traditions but actively evolving them.”
A standard Native Hawaiian kite, “Lupe Hōkū (Star Kite)” (2023), made by Lehuauakea.
Along with revitalizing the standard apply of kapa, Lehuauakea informed Hyperallergic that their work incorporates textiles commemorating their Japanese heritage, which dates again to a wave of immigrants who got here to Hawaiʻi as sugar and pineapple plantation laborers.
Lehuauakea stated their present work addresses what “contemporary mixed Indigenous heritage looks like for someone with a similar experience to [theirs] in 2025.”
Kapa is made with soaked and crushed tree bark, often from wauke bushes.
In a single set up, “Still Finding My Way Back Home” (2025), Lehuauakea stitched baggage of Calrose Rice, which they stated they grew up consuming, with kapa, Japanese silk, kimono materials, and cotton in a quilt-like work.
“So many of us come from plantation histories,” Lehuauakea stated. “I wanted to celebrate those histories, which can often be complicated and filled with assimilation, erasure, and family secrets.”
Lehuauakea stated that the $15,000 grant will particularly fund studio lease and supplies in preparation for his or her upcoming exhibition in New York, which shall be their first solo present on the East Coast.
“I see getting this opportunity and support as bigger than myself,” Lehuauakea stated, including that they understand that many modern Native arts organizations don’t usually heart Native Hawaiian artists.
“I hope I can do right by this and represent my community well,” Lehuauakea stated. “And hopefully, I can encourage others to open future doors for other Native Hawaiians to be included in the conversation, too.”
An in depth-up of interwoven kapa, repurposed Japanese textiles, and classic rice baggage.
