Every First Friday evening of the month, DAC joins other creative organizations in the Chinatown Arts District with special art activities, performances, make & take crafting projects, exhibition opening receptions, artist meet & greets, and more!

Photo: IONA Contemporary Dance Theatre

Acclaimed Nepalese artist Tsherin Sherpa boldly explores the complexities of some of the most pressing social issues of the 21st century, including migration and the ways in which traditional cultures respond to the challenges and opportunities of internationalization. He does this by recontextualizing tradition Himalayan Buddhist art with a new contemporary relevance.  

This major solo exhibition includes more than twenty paintings, sculptures, and a carpet, some of which are well-known artworks that established Sherpa as a significant voice in the world of contemporary art, as well as new pieces on public view for the first time.  

The University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program (Hawaiʻi Sea Grant) is proud to present its annual sci-art exhibit featuring youth ocean art. Running concurrently at three locations across Honolulu, this inspiring multi-venue gallery showcase highlights the creativity, deep cultural ties, and ecological understanding of local keiki (grades 3–12) expressing their unique relationships with the ocean.

The exhibition is a direct community extension of the "Symphony of the Hawaiʻi Seas". The Symphony began as a one-of-a-kind collaboration among cultural practitioners, marine science researchers, animators, educators, and composers who transformed stories based on observations and understanding of the ocean into a symphonic experience. Seeking to amplify the voices of the next generation, students across Oʻahu were invited to share their own voices, understandings, and visions for the future of Hawaiʻi’s ocean.

The resulting exhibition is centered entirely around the theme: "E mālama i ke kai, a mālama ke kai iā ʻoe" (Care for the ocean and the ocean will care for you). Through the eyes of Hawaiʻi’s youth, visitors will be reminded that our connection to the sea is not only ecological, but also cultural, emotional, and deeply personal.

Please visit seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/symphony-of-hawaii-seas-art for more information.

An evening of art and music at Capitol Modern: the Hawai'i State Art Museum! Free admission, all ages welcome. This event will feature the annual Producer Showcase with Slapp Good. Please note that the museum is closed during the day (Fourth of July state holiday observed) and will open at 5:00 p.m. for the First Friday event.

Free, all-ages evening of island roots and reggae music. Museum galleries are open and the Art + Flea urban market will include local artists and food/beverage vendors.

In Hawaiʻi, Ralph Iwamoto is well known for his later minimalist abstractions. This summer, the Honolulu Museum of Art presents a rare look at an earlier moment in his career, with seven paintings from 1955 on loan from the Vilcek Foundation. 

These works reveal a brief but compelling engagement with Surrealism. During this period, Iwamoto worked in New York City at a shop that sold objects and flowers from Hawaiʻi. His paintings are replete with floral reminders of his native land, combining heliconia, orchids, and other plant forms with skeletal components, set against flat backgrounds reminiscent of Japanese prints. The hybrid creatures are similar to those found in Cuban artist Wifredo Lam’s The Jungle (1942–43).

In the gallery devoted to woodblock prints, explore illustrations of literary works that discuss the concept of filial piety—respectful behavior towards those in positions of authority, particularly one’s own parents.  

On view are prints by Okumura Masanobu, Utagawa Hiroshige, and Utagawa Kuniyoshi illustrating The Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety (1730s), The Tale of the Soga Brothers (1644), and Kanadehon Chūshingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers), 1748. 

MADE POSSIBLE BY THE ROBERT F. LANGE FOUNDATION 

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Okumura Masanobu (1686–1764).  Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety: Guo Ju. Japan, Edo period (1615–1868), early 1730s . Woodblock print; ink on paper with hand-coloring . Gift of James A. Michener, 1991 (21665) .

As daily life is increasingly shaped by near constant digital stimulation, contributing to rising rates of anxiety, depression, and social isolation, the Honolulu Museum of Art presents Vital Connections: Art & the Brain, one of the first large-scale museum exhibitions to explore the relationship between creativity and human health.  

Discover how experiencing and making art enhances well-being and brain function through a wide array of artists and media and the latest findings in neuroscience. Developed in collaboration with clinicians and neuroscientists at Honolulu’s Brain Health Applied Research Institute (B+HARI), Vital Connections: Art & the Brain unites the fields of art and neuroscience to offer an immersive, restorative space where you will learn what art is doing to your brain and body as you experience it. 

Inspired by the historic 2025 declaration by Pacific Island leaders, Ocean of Peace anchors a vision of the future in the enduring harmony, cooperation, and ancestral wisdom of Pacific peoples. Pacific Island leaders declared the Blue Pacific Continent as an Ocean of Peace:

Recognising Pacific peoples as custodians of the Blue Pacific Continent, and recalling that peace is integral to the Pacific Way in guiding interactions within and beyond the region through dialogue, consensus, respect for national sovereignty, and cultural traditions;

Acknowledging the critical role of inclusive approaches to peace that recognise the unique contributions of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, civil society, faith-based organisations, the private sector, women and girls in all their diversity, persons with disabilities, youth, and other marginalised or vulnerable groups in building and sustaining peace and resolving conflict across our Blue Pacific Continent;

Positioning the Blue Pacific Ocean of Peace as a statement of our Pacific worldview, where peace, security and development are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, and where our priorities, including economic, social, cultural, environmental, and human wellbeing, are defined on our terms and advanced in alignment with our values, interests and aspirations.

Ocean of Peace features eleven contemporary artists whose visual storytelling spans carving, painting, drawing, photography, poetry, sculpture, weaving, and digital rendering. Exhibited alongside select treasures from the East-West Center Collection, these dynamic offerings bridge cultures and communities, inviting us all to look beyond geopolitical divisions and collectively realize a unified ocean of peace. 

This collaborative exhibition is organized into thematic areas of Story, Restoring and Re-story-ing; Generations, Responsibility to Community; Renewal, Resilience, and Protection. 

Featured artists: James C. Bamba, Carol Ann Carl, Manny Crisostomo, Gillian Dueñas, Kainoa Gruspe, Amber Khan, Marques Hanalei Marzan, Kalany Omengkar, Saumolia Puapuaga, Anthony Watson, and Lissette Yamase

This exhibition pairs the work of visionary, self-taught artist Joseph E. Yoakum (1890–1972) with that of Ray Yoshida (1930–2009).

Born on Kauaʻi, Yoshida became one of the most influential artists and teachers in postwar Chicago. Yoakum, who was of African American and Native American descent, traveled widely with the circus after running away from home as a child. The self-described “hobo and stowaway” began drawing at the age of seventy and showed his vibrant, swelling landscapes in a Chicago storefront. These works, informed by memory, spirituality, and personal mythology, quickly drew the attention of key figures in the postwar Chicago art scene, including Yoshida, who became an important supporter of Yoakum’s work. Drawing from the Honolulu Museum of Art’s collection, this exhibition reunites works by both artists to explore their shared journey. Explore these two the artists’ shared connections, distinctive visions, and postwar Chicago art scene at HoMA.

The state’s largest and longest-running all-media juried exhibition, designed to showcase the best of Hawaiʻi’s contemporary art.

DAC is delighted to host "David Takagi: A Retrospective of 60 years," on view in the Courtyard Gallery November 6-14, 2026. Respected Oahu-born-and-raised photographer, financial and insurance professional, and longtime arts supporter David Takagi presents a selection of his photographs from the past 60 years, in this special exhibition.

Opening reception: 5-8 p.m. First Friday, November 6