Melissa Chimera

In this work, Chimera prints her own repeating photographic image with a Hawaiian ‘āwikiwiki flower stitched in silk and forms a circular pattern. The figures are laid against a backdrop of a white silhouette which likewise spirals. The silhouette references a wooden saddle from the southern Philippines (in the Honolulu Museum of Art collection) and suggests the successive waves of migrations from Asia across the Pacific and the possibility of infinite human movement.  The Pacific Island latitudes and longitudes are printed backwards, forwards and vertically, suggesting that time and space are non-linear.