Abigail Romanchak

Abigail Romanchak is a visual artist known for perpetuating Native Hawaiian culture and perspectives on the imprint human beings and technology create on natural environment. Through contemporary art forms, often in abstract and finely textured, multi-layered prints, she explores the intricate connections between us and the world we live in.

Support from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation allowed her to create a new body of work addressing the impact of climate change in Hawaii, specifically a new series of large-scale wood cut prints addressing sea levels rising due to global warming.  Works were exhibited locally and internationally, debuting in a group exhibition of Native Hawaiian artists at the Lower Saxton State Museum in Hanover, Germany, in 2016.

Her work has been recognized by the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and The Arts, she is in the collections of The White House in Washington D.C., the Australian National Gallery in Canberra and the University of New South Wales in Sydney. She earned an M.F.A in printmaking at the University of Hawaii and established a printmaking studio in Honolulu. “I am absolutely obsessed with the process and the mystery of not knowing what the finished print will look like, to not be in control of the whole process. I like feeling a little bit out of control! You could spend a lifetime mastering just one medium, there’s always more to learn,” said Romanchak.

“I believe that Native cultures are jeopardized once they stop speaking to people in the present day. As an artist, I seek to perpetuate traditional culture through contemporary means so that it endures for generations to come.” – Abigail Romanchak