A Compass of Color
Pascaline Laloux maps Maui’s contours using NOAA charts as her canvass
by Ariella Nardizzi
photograph by Savannah Dagupion
The sea has always been Pascaline Laloux’s compass. It carried her from France to Maui’s North Shore in 1982, when she arrived chasing wind and never left. Today, from her Haʻikū studio, those same tides of adventure flow through her art, where nautical maps and watercolor meet in motion.
Pascaline trained at the Beaux-Arts Academy in Lyon, then set sail with no fixed destination. The ocean shaped her life early – through sailing, windsurfing and a professional career that included a women’s world speed record. Navigation, precision and movement were once tools for survival. They are still present, just translated to paper.
When Pascaline arrived on Maui, art began as a side hustle, a way to make a living between days on the water. As the island took hold, her work deepened. The maps she once studied for safe passage became her canvas.
Her signature pieces transform upcycled National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration nautical charts into layered paintings. Watercolor washes flow across the precise lines of depth soundings and coordinates, echoing trade winds, currents and the ocean’s rhythm. The tension between structure and fluidity mirrors Maui itself.
“Ocean open sailing was an important piece of my life for so long,” Pascaline said. “All the precise maps and navigation I studied, I had to keep it in my art somewhere.”
Movement is central to her work, as are traditional Hawaiian symbols that speak to the relationship between land and sea. In Hōkūleʻa Returning Home, Pascaline honors the voyaging canoe’s 42,000-mile journey around the world, weaving navigation, ancestry and motion into a single composition.
In many paintings, she depicts Maui as feminine – the island’s outline resembling a sculpted bust or a woman’s profile. While Polynesian mythology tells of Māui the demigod as male, Pascaline consulted kūpuna before portraying the island as wahine, grounding her interpretation in respect and dialogue.
Her work also draws inspiration from Hawaiian quilting traditions, where layers of fabric are stitched into functional beauty. Pascaline adapts that approach by blending sketches, old Pacific Island currency and mixed media into cohesive, story-driven pieces.
Today, her ocean-infused art appears across the island, from the Four Seasons Resort Wailea to Mama’s Fish House in Kūʻau, as well as Hui No‘eau Visual Art Center and Viewpoint Fine Art Gallery in Makawao.
Often, Pascaline doesn’t know where a painting will end until it does. She allows the work to reveal itself, guided by instinct rather than plan. “My paintings are a story,” she said. “They invite viewers in to learn about the island without presumption – and to share a deeper love for it.”
From windsurfing sails to watercolor brushes, Pascaline has always followed the same current. Her art charts its own course, shaped by the ocean’s power, precision and enduring mystery – the same forces that brought her to Maui more than four decades ago.
Title: Priceless
Title: Maui on My Mind
Title: Sweet Molokai
photographs by Pascaline Laloux
