Vanishing Pueo

Vanishing Pueo is a site-responsive mural depicting the pueo, Hawaiʻi’s endemic short-eared owl. It was created using wildfire charcoal from Hawaiʻi Island, earth pigments gathered in Waimea, and water from Waikoloa Stream.

My vanishing murals are made using pigments without binders and are intentionally ephemeral. At the end of the exhibition, Vanishing Pueo was washed away, completing the work’s cycle of creation and destruction.

Through these ephemeral murals, I explore impermanence, environmental change, memory, and our relationship to place. The image may vanish, but the story and memory of what was there remain.

Vanishing Pueo was created for Inter-Island Action at Kahilu Exhibits in Waimea, Hawaiʻi, in 2024.

Photos by Lance Roylo/Hello Momentum

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