Michael Daly Artist
The handmade marks of art are a joy for the child artist, the master artist and onlookers alike.
I’ve been creating art in Hawai`i for more than 33 years. I’m originally an Australia artist. I’ve been taking international portrait commissions on Oahu for the past decade. The pandemic disrupted things and during the lockdown I moved back to Kaua’i island where I used to live and work. The return is an opportunity to get back to my own painting and art happenings while still accepting outside art commissions.
Since early school days I’d been a fine artist and it’s an opportunity now to get back to painting my own expressions while still accepting outside art and portrait commissions.
Art has been a constant practice and companion for me. It became most evident during fourth grade that I succeeded in art. I enjoyed art, painting provided validation and I found my voice. Their came a buzz of artistic enthusiasm in Toowoomba and SE Queensland at the same time I was in high school. I attended summer art schools at the local college and at the University of Queensland. I was now mixing with adults and renowned Australian artists. I remember my first life drawing classes there.
My lectures made a great impact in developing my purpose and direction. I would carry forward an art idea I called Universalism.
My art career has somehow propelled my way through life and around the world. It’s connected me to wonderful people and fascinating places. I was accepted to a liberal art and design school in Melbourne, Victoria. Later I would travel worldwide and visited the great museums of art and other found galleries in some 40 countries. While living in New York City in 1985 I founded a hands-on community art initiative called The Lovelink Project.
My About page has the story in brief of my career and adventures.
I’ve been creating art in Hawai`i for more than 33 years. I’m originally an Australia artist. I’ve been taking international portrait commissions on Oahu for the past decade. The pandemic disrupted things (understatement) and during the lockdown and I moved back to Kaua’i island where I used to live and work. The return is an opportunity to get back to my own painting and art happenings while still accepting outside art commissions.
I’ve had a dynamic life and art career which includes being nested in an influential art environment during my school days and having contact with national artists who became my mentors. I made a mission I named universalism. I studied art in a liberal art school in Melbourne. I travelled to 40 countries in the 80’s. I began a community art initiative in NYC called The Lovelink Project. And I coordinate the annual Kaua’i EarthFest programme on Kaua’i.
My About page has the story in brief of my career and adventures.
Portrait art
A commission of an original art portrait is a unique and gratifying engagement. It is a lifetime honour for the subject/s.
Fine art
My portfolio of art stretches six decades and three continents from my early school days in Toowoomba, Australia to my more aged period now on Kaua’i island, Hawai’i. I have exhibited in Australia, New York, Switzerland and Hawai’i. I still have lots to say through my art.
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Help my upcoming projects
Lahaina Firestorm Recovery
Roll out Genocide
Julian and Stella Assange Prison Wedding
Recent work
Sacred Whale Lahaina
This piece has prophetic and prayerful aspects. I completed Sacred Whale Lahaina in July 2023 just weeks before the devastating Lahaina fire of August 08. The artwork was developed from a simple postcard reference that was originally to be interpreted by me as a coloured pencil work on large paper.
The postcard reference was given to me by an art collector who commissioned “a breaching whale in Hawai’i”. I continually evolved the idea into a religious kind of art. I choose the township and mountains of Lahaina as my Hawaiian place. And I found myself overworking my pencil with oil crayon and then oil paint itself. My message was that of ecological regard; the whale with its Jesus halo and the backdrop of the universe with night and day symbolizes the yin and yang and sanctity of all nature.
Frankly I was thrilled to be painting big and colourful statements again after decades of mostly portrait drawings.
The firestorm ripped through Lahaina and killed more than 55 people with a thousand missing as of August 12, 2023.
The recovery is still underway. The whale art has now taken on a Pacific island version of the phoenix rising from the ashes.
Lahaina has always been an art and cultural center of Hawai’i so my heart goes out to the Kanaka Hawaiian people and the arts community there.
Appeal I would like the art to serve to inspire and help recovery. Please see the Project Brief here.
