Swimmers surrounded by dolphins under giant clouds. A whale jumping for joy and viewed from the ocean looking toward land. A paddler in an outrigger canoe with palm trees in the background. All depicted in hues that could be the colors of a sunset or water: blue, orange, red, yellow, green.
For waterman Mike Field, most of his art is focused on water. The Hawaiʻi Island-based artist was born in Guam. He started with swimming, which led to surfing, paddling and eventually racing and coaching.
“I grew up here in Hawaiʻi, and ever since I was a very young kid, I was drawn to the ocean,” he said.
Field’s work is currently on display in the newly reimagined Voyager 47 Club Lounge at the Outrigger Kona Resort & Spa. It is part of a collection of Hawaiʻi-inspired artwork, which is part of a $60 million revitalization of the resort overlooking Keauhou Bay.
Other artists featured in the collection include Sig + Kuhao Zane, Tom Van Sant, Kumu Keala Ching, Kristie Fujiyama Kosmides, Tom Pōhaku Stone, Wayne Levin and Bryan Da Silva. The lobby also includes a fishing canoe, and Piko Restaurant has original artwork from the Matson Cruiseline, which operated from 1920 through the 1960s.
Field’s mother is an artist. When he was growing up, she would identify artists by name and show her kids their work. Field, who graduated from Punahou School, often saw some of these artists at friends’ houses.
“As a kid, I would go to some friends’ homes, and I would notice a painting that my mom had described — or an artist that she had told me about. I would just be blown away, and I'd go back home and say, ʻHey, that artist you told me about, my friend's family happens to have that in their living room.’ ”
Growing up, his mother would host painting classes at the house. Field would come home from school and imagine how he would have depicted the scene.
But his art career really got started when he left Hawaiʻi for college. He moved to the East Coast because “my mom did not want me anywhere near the ocean for my first year of school for fear that I would surf my way out of the education,” he said.
Field only lasted that first year away from the Islands. It was a “crazy mistake,” he said.
“I was so homesick for my first semester that all I did was draw leaves and fish and flowers and nudes and coconut trees and things of Hawaiʻi that really kept me going through the winter,” Field said.
He came home for the holidays and showed the artwork to his mom and friends, who were in the art business or worked with surfboard brands. It was the moment when he realized art might be his career.
Since then, his work has been exhibited in New York, London and Shanghai, according to his website. He worked with Quicksilver on a line of men’s clothing that featured board shorts, linen shirts, straw hats, hoodies, and T-shirts, called Quicksilver by M. Field.
His work is also featured at popular tourist destinations, including the Outrigger Kona Resort & Spa and Lava Lava Beach Club on Hawaiʻi Island, as well as Queen Kapiʻolani Hotel in Waikīkī on Oʻahu.
Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
