Canvas Giclee

Size: 24"x30"

The Exotic Traveler was painted for a specific reason, I was asked to paint something for the cover of "Tiki Magazine". This was a very big deal for me! I wanted to show a classic looking Tiki. I wanted it to vein a very classic "Hawaiianna" setting a beautiful night scene of a secluded beach, a perfect wave, with a small enchanted tiki hut on a beach in the background. I carefully placed in exotic orchids to frame the foreground.

Then, I wanted a touch of the fantastic; I wanted to show something about local superstitions we have on the big Island of Hawaii about spirit-balls glowing in the jungle. A few dance around the hut, then one rises up out of the sand right in front of the TIKI. What is it? Good question! As the title suggests maybe it's a visitor from far away enjoying the beauty of Hawaii, an inter-dimensional tourist? Maybe a dear departed loved on watching over family? Or maybe just a trick of the light and the glowing lights you sometimes see in the jungle at night are nothing at all. These questions are best answered by the viewer.  

Size: 16"x20"

In 1956 a movie blasted onto theater screens, grabbed the imagination of a generation & hurled them into the cosmos with such vibrant alien sounds colors artifacts creatures and characters that it changed pop-culture. Forbidden Planet is an epic science fiction masterwork placing the Shakespeare play "The Tempest" on a distant planet plump with a lost alien civilization and stalked by monsters from the "ID". 

Welcome to "Forbidden Island". It's one of the most popular of my "Tiki-Paintings". It's been pirated & sold on-line, fought over in court, and chosen by a few world class athletes as their favorite of all my work. It's the wrap-around cover to a great neo-exotica album by the "Crazed Mugs" named "Find Forbidden Island". It was painted with that purpose in mind - being an album cover. 

"Forbidden Island" is my homage to the science fiction films of the 1950's I loved growing up. Its various bizarre elements are all found in many of those movies, like the 1956 sci-fi epic; "Forbidden Planet" - that amazing film has many of the fantastic elements found here; Crashed ships, Aliens, Lost civilizations, Mental super powers, and walking automatons carrying beautiful girls. 

Forbidden Island's wide horizontal composition allowed me to create different scenes within its frame. On the left is a rustic tropical Tiki Lounge complete with glowing neon sign and two guardian Tiki doormen. Like any good '50's sci-fi film plot, there's a secret Laboratory with a giant tank and floating inside is a huge alien brain. The repulsive purple thing glares outward emitting a ruby-red stream if telekinetic power it uses to serve up an exotic tropical drink cooling in a frosty cold "Cthulhu Tiki-Mug". This beverage floats out to the exotic Wahine being carried by an accommodating "living Tiki". A giant stone Moai head looks out stoically over a wrecked pirate ship and it's cursed treasure, and further out across the sparkling sunset bay to an equally enormous stone statue carved into the island cliffs of an ancient "elder sea-god" like those written about in books by H.P. Lovecraft. Amongst the exotic flora and fauna is a brilliantly lit wave showing the framed silhouette of a shark cursing the coastline - making sure no one leaves or enters Forbidden Island.