Cafe Kopi Mini-Park
45 Kihapai StreetOahu - the Gathering Place is a series of luminous and texturally layered paintings that explore the Hawaiian island of O‘ahu as more than a geographic site — instead, as a symbolic and emotional convergence zone. Borrowing from the island’s translated name, artist Gerald Euhon Sheffield II weaves together moments of rest, entanglement, cohabitation, and hybrid aesthetics to evoke the island’s unique role as both cultural crossroads and personal sanctuary.
Rendered in soft but intentional brushwork, the works shift between representation and atmosphere: a rooster meets a duck in a shadowed barn corner; a lone woman gazes toward a planetary moon; figures recline in water and color beneath radiant skies. Built from everyday snapshots and sketches taken across the island, these paintings do not aim for documentation — they evoke intersections, drawing from memory, myth, and a sense of being-with.
Through recurring motifs of water, birds, light, and shelter, the exhibition opens a space for viewers to consider how bodies, species, and histories gather — sometimes quietly, sometimes in vivid tension — within shared space. The result is a show that feels at once intimate and collective, grounded and dreamlike.
“Oahu, or the Gathering Place…” invites the viewer into a place where entangled forms coexist, where the everyday and the ethereal blur, and where the island’s surfaces shimmer with the quiet complexity of connection.
Gerald Euhon Sheffield II is an artist and educator based in the Hudson Valley, New York. His multidisciplinary practice — spanning painting, sculpture, and site-specific research — explores themes of place, memory, and social entanglement. A U.S. Army veteran, Sheffield served in Paraguay, Guatemala, Brazil, Kuwait, and Iraq, experiences that continue to shape his artistic lens. He holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University. Honors include a Fulbright to Uzbekistan, the Alice Kimball English Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Veteran Fellowship.
Sheffield currently teaches drawing and painting at Williams College (MA) and SUNY New Paltz. Recent exhibitions include Surviving the Long Wars (Chicago Cultural Center, 2023), We Feel Our Way Through When We Don’t Know (Brattleboro Museum, 2022), Elective Affinities (Chapter NY Gallery, 2022), fables for introverts (NADA House, 2022), and melancholy satire (Steven Zevitas Gallery, 2022).
Cafe Kopi 45 Kihapai Street, Kailua Hawaii
May 23 2025 - July 22, 2025
Opening Reception: May 23, 5-9 pm.
music, pupus, wine and delicious Cafe Kopi food available.
THIS IS A FREE EVENT
Sun, May 25, 2025 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Cafe Kopi Mini-Park
45 Kihapai Street
Cafe Kopi is located in Kailua, Hawaii
Cafe Kopi is an International bakery and café rooted in French and Italian traditions, inspired by Singapore and eclectic Asia, all blended and steeped in gentle Hawaiian ambience. A natural, funky, quirky, ultra-modern, and comfortable gathering spot for the best in food, drink, art, and music. Where creativity is cherished and community and friendships appreciated.