DIR-T-ART

Nuuanu Gallery's exhibition features artists turning a messy stain into art

Oh, those stains. You've tried soaking them out, scrubbing them out, but ... why bother when they can be used to artistic advantage?

"Dirty Laundry" The Art of the Stain in Modern T-Shirt Design: » Place: Nuuanu Gallery » Time: On view through Aug. 20; grand opening 5 to 9 p.m. tomorrow » Admission: Free » Call: 536-9828 Video on the Net: » blogs.starbulletin.com/fashiontribe

In these eco-conscious times, the latest Nuuanu Gallery exhibition, "Dirty Laundry: The Art of the Stain in Modern T-Shirt Design," aims to show there's no need to trash a good shirt just because you missed your mouth when sipping wine or became a sputtering infant when chowing down on pasta covered with tomato sauce. There is, apparently, a fashionable aspect to stains.

The show, curated by graphic designer Jesse Arneson of Wall-to-Wall Studios, challenges the perception that a shirt is ruined by staining. He asks wearers instead to consider the idea of the remix.

"I'd been trying to push design a little bit, and bring in fresh insight," said Arneson, whose involvement with the gallery started during last year's T-Party, which gave artists the opportunity to design and sell T-shirts.

"Things went really well, so I said if you ever have another one, I'd love to be a part of it; help create and organize it," Arneson said, and he was surprised when gallery curator Mariko Merritt offered him the space for his own show in conjunction with the next T-Party Sept. 13.

"We wanted to show that the difference between the things we consider garbage and what has value is all based on perception, without getting too political about it," Arneson said. "We still wanted to have fun."

He initially planned to gather old T-shirts from Goodwill and work with existing stains and graphics, promoting the idea of recycling and repurposing an unwanted item to give it new life.

"At first it sounded like fun, but then it seemed logistically challenging to find all the shirts," he said, so he enlisted about 25 artists from Hawaii and abroad, asking them to stain six shirts with a medium of choice. Once the shirts were stained, they set about creating artwork incorporating the stains as design elements.

Featured artists include Hawaii's Alan Konishi and April Lee, Missouri's Frank Chimero, Mike Perry of Brooklyn, Rosemarie Fiore of New York City, and Tim Gough of Philadelphia. Keetra Dean Dixon collected hugs from paint-smeared strangers while on an Alaska trip and also smeared her face with clownish makeup and left imprints of her visage on shirts.

Konishi had his farming family wear shirts in the fields, picking up red dirt along the way. He finished by silk-screening a likeness of the family member onto the shirt each member wore.

Shirts will be available for purchase, at $25 to $60, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii. Not all the shirts will be fit to wear, for different reasons. Rosemarie Fiore's shirts, painted and shredded by fireworks, might fall apart in the wash, and it is hard to imagine a buyer for works by Topos Graphics, worn day in and day out during its creators' travels, leading to armpit stains.

Arneson, who's also working on shirts of his own, has had his own problems selecting a medium, but said, "Toilet bowl cleaner stains surprisingly well."