(ABOVE) “Poke Bowl deconstructs a local favorite and delves into its origins,” says artist Lauren Trangmar. Like much of her other work, this piece alludes to the kind of meticulously detailed illustration found in pre-photography anatomical and scientific texts.
Artist Lauren Trangmar is in her driveway, checking on a pan of coffee cherries she picked off a friend's coffee plant. She's drying them in the sun, experimenting to see whether she can brew coffee with them. Trangmar likes to figure out how things work. This is evident in her finely detailed drawings and prints, influenced by illustrations from pre-photography medical texts and naturalist studies.
Originally from New Zealand (her Hawaii-born mother met her Kiwi father when he was a student at the University of Hawaii), Trangmar traveled to Oahu after earthquakes leveled her hometown of Christchurch in 2011. The disaster had left her jobless and interrupted her art studies at the University of Canterbury. While finishing her design degree at the University of Hawaii, she developed her trademark archaic style-with modern twists-while taking Professor Scott Groeniger's alternative printing class.
"He had a copy of Gray's Anatomy, and I loved it-how intricate and detailed the drawings were, and on aged, worn pages," recalls Trangmar. She scoured Hamilton Library's science section for inspiration; the intricately detailed drawings of German zoologist Ernst Haeckel were particularly influential. In her Lore of Creativity: Anatomy Series, Trangmar combines human organs, animal parts and fantastic "tools" to create otherworldly bodily systems. In Lore of Creativity: Cosmology, Trangmar reinvents celestial maps to illustrate the workings of creativity rather than the cosmos.
Ironically, Trangmar never set out to be an artist-she was on track to become a graphic designer. As part of a homework assignment, she applied to the prestigious juried exhibition Artists of Hawaii at the Honolulu Museum of Art in 2015. When her work was accepted she said to herself, "'Oh, no! What am I doing now?' But really it's the best thing that could've happened. I didn't even know I could be an artist." After the show, commissions started rolling in and her career took off.
In her tidy studio in Waialae Nui, Trangmar creates her illustrations on the computer and with ultrafine Japanese drawing pens (just .15 mm) and watercolors. Her series of drawings diagramming aspects of local life-such as musubi, rubber slippers and an ilima lei-and her studies of Island flora and fauna are popular at design-focused shops such as Fishcake and Mori by Art+Flea. She collaborated with the University of Hawaii's Sea Grant program to illustrate the Waikiki ahupuaa (ancient land division) for a jigsaw puzzle, and she created wallpaper of a fantastical tropical landscape for 'Alohilani Resort's new Wonderclub Lounge. More recently, Hawaiian Airlines commissioned Trangmar to include "local-style people with a local vibe," she says, like a muumuu-sporting tutu (grandmother) in the seat pocket safety instructions.
laurentrangmar.comOpens external link to page that may not meet accessibility guidelines
