A love of Lahaina and the ocean enliven renowned painter Robert Lyn Nelson
by Mona de Crinis
Robert Lyn Nelson poses in front of a Lahaina tribute piece in progress with daughter Sienna, also an established artist.
Walking into Robert Lyn Nelson’s home studio is an exercise in sensory management. Neurons fire and pulse quickens as eyes dart from painting to painting to painting, the brain fully engaged from cerebral cortex to medulla oblongata.
Hundreds of canvases representing almost as many mediums and styles easily eclipse the trappings of domesticity in this residence turned gallery. Abstracts lean against armoires, cubism punctuates corridors, impressionism floats atop high walls and surrealism seduces at every turn.
In what may seem a Maui brick-and-mortar homage to the Old Masters and 20th century genre benders who helped shape Nelson’s craft, only the faint aura of their genius remains after the final brushstroke. Impossible to pigeonhole, his art defies both category and convention — products of a guiding philosophy that refuses classification and accepts no limits.
Two Worlds
Paeans to other artforms — a sculpture here, a collage there, mixed media — are peppered throughout, as are exquisite explorations in oil that include whimsical interpretations of everyday objects, a series of nudes in yellow and his sublime tribute to The Beatles featuring quintessential song elements surreptitiously woven into the iconic tapestry. A scattering of easels hold completed works or those in progress, patiently awaiting their metamorphosis from pupae to brilliant butterfly.
While grasping the magnitude of Nelson’s unbridled brilliance in a single glance is futile and proscriptive, it’s clear he dips often and deep into the creative well; his is a fount of fluid self-expression that cannot be capped.
His gaze resting on a recently finished piece, an asymmetrical explosion of angles and color, Nelson acknowledged the footprint of those who came before — David Hockney, Gerhard Richter, Pablo Picasso and other influential mavericks of contemporary art. But that’s where the similarities end. “I love Picasso,” he said. “But I don’t do cubism like he did. I do it my own way.”
And that’s how Nelson’s been doing it for more than 50 years. Hockney, Richter and Picasso may have set the signposts, but the path forged as one of Maui’s most prolific and commercially successful talents is his alone.
In addition to a half century of showcasing his work in galleries in Lahaina, most of which are now defunct or destroyed during last August’s wildfires, Nelson’s protracted curriculum vitae includes hundreds of worldwide exhibitions, collectors that include famous actors, four U.S. presidents and pedigreed rock stars Paul McCartney and Steven Tyler, youngest solo exhibitor (to date) at the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of Natural History and founder of the Modern Marine Art Movement, or “Two World” style blending the seen with the unseen.
“The ocean art thing in the 80s and 90s? That was one big experiment,” Nelson said, recalling the vivid depictions of above-surface and below-surface life — dolphins cavorting with humpbacks and honu (green sea turtles) under the sea while the harbor buzzes with activity above — that catapulted his career.
Magical Mystery Tour
As an artistic prodigy growing up in California, Nelson was fascinated by stories he read about 19th-century whaling expeditions. The tales stoked his imagination and, at the age of 18, he came to the islands to find his muse in the historic whaling town of Lāhainā.
He found so much more. In Lahaina, Nelson found a sweeping “culture of kindness” rooted in ohana and carried by wind and sea. And when last August’s wildfires ripped through the heart of his adopted hometown, taking his along with it, he found solace in her memory.
Although the seven-day-a-week artist and self-admitted workaholic wakes each day not knowing what he’s going to paint, preferring to “be surprised, because you never know what life will bring,” there was no question in those following weeks and months.
Turning to canvas and palette, Nelson channeled his anger and grief into more than a dozen paintings honoring the spirit of the place that stole his soul more than half a century ago. “Beauty and Devastation,” a provocative piece juxtaposing a ravaged Lāhainā with the unsullied magnificence of Lāna‘i in the distance, went viral almost immediately.
The painting, while unsettling in its frank portrayal of tragedy, is a reminder of the promise that lives beyond the charred landscape, burned-out cars and blackened coconuts. “I speak through my work,” said Nelson. “I wanted to convey that beauty surrounds us still. Lāhainā will rebuild, and we will hear her heartbeat again” — a powerful message of hope from an artist more comfortable with brushes than words.
Of late, Nelson’s focus has shifted to climate change. A staunch defender of marine wildlife, his dogged activism sparked decades ago after connecting eye to eye with a humpback whale while surfing Lahaina waters. This once-in-a-lifetime encounter ultimately led to co-founding the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation with longtime friend, Jean-Michel Cousteau.
Wisdom
In a recent work, Nelson urges action and heralds the threat of inaction through strategically placed subliminal warnings — a tiny bee, a global obsession with pop culture, the crushing weight of the almighty dollar.
“I’ve spent 40 years trying to save the ocean through my work, and some people still only see Snoopy and Garfield,” he said with a wry smile. “But that’s the power of art, right? It resonates differently with different people, and they see what they need or want to see. Sometimes it’s better if you don’t explain it.”
If we’re lucky, one day he won’t have to.