islandwide
Amber Khan
Nālani Sato
Lawrence Seward

April 8 - 25, 2026
Opening April 8, 6pm

Aupuni Space is pleased to present islandwide, a gesture towards envisioning the Hawaiian Islands through aesthetic and geological relationality rather than isolation.

Curated by Marika Emi, the exhibition brings together the work of three artists–Amber Khan, Nālani Sato, and Lawrence Seward–whose experiences of being raised in Hawai‘i, living elsewhere, and returning to Hawai‘i have profoundly shaped their practices. In the shared space of a gallery which has been enveloped in woven rattan, bamboo, and lauhala, underneath the soft glow of lamp light, and alongside the materials we use to gather inspiration, we invite you to linger, read, and consider speculative futures of island ecologies that are in rhythm with artists and makers from archipelagic places.

“No island is an island.”

Seward’s Paper Lei paintings depict the simulacra of paper lei floating on sensuous ripples of dark and rainbow-tinged water, holding tensions between mourning and leisure, sentimental reflection and tourist consumption. The poetic gesture of paper lei is drawn into dialogue with Seward’s New Dawn Island, a project in which the artist speculates on a fictional island resort as the site of dystopic collapse and eventual cult-led mass suicide. Nālani Sato draws connections between indigenous forms of healing, tropical modernisms, and animism in her large-scale oil paintings depicting haunting narrative landscapes of Hawai‘i. Sato’s dream-like, muted palette contrasts with the equally surreal artifice of Seward’s paper flowers and aquamarine reflective glass of high rise hotels. Meanwhile, Amber Khan salvages, nurtures, and reclaims discarded organic materials, such as wood, shells, and pōhaku, creating sculptures which serve as open allegorical conversations to reorient her own Pacific sense of place as settler and practitioner. islandwide offers an aesthetics of island-based care that seeks possibilities and through-lines, rather than ruptures and endings.