Meet Keiolani (Kani) Mahinan-Brockenbrough

Today we’d like to introduce you to Keiolani (Kani) Mahinan-Brockenbrough.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
The more I look back, I was drawing whenever I could, anywhere I would be. It was kind of like serenity amidst the chaos of my environment. I thought it was funny how I used to think I was going to be a fashion designer growing up, but regardless, I had always been attracted to the visual arts. It was inevitable that I’d become an artist of some sort. After high school, I attended my community college with the idea that I’d become some kind of visual artist but wasn’t sure what kind. It wasn’t until I attended a painting 1 class that prompted the class to create our own paintings from our imagination. After that, I sort of fell in love with bringing whatever was in my head into the real world.

The whole process is still fascinating to me. I basically want to do that for the rest of my life. I was actually afraid of art school and the art world in general because I didn’t think I was worthy. My goal after Community College was not actually art school, but rather to make it into UC’s….but I still made sure I applied to Calarts along with many of the other top art schools just to see what I could get into. Because the visual arts portfolio did not allow class assignments (just your own creative body of work), that was scary for me at the time. I didn’t think my portfolio would suffice for their acceptance rate. I thought I was just someone who made odd paintings and enjoyed it. Upon my surprise, I was given the acceptance letter to Calarts, and it wasn’t until I had visited the campus that I had only wanted to go to this school more than anything. I am now currently attending Calarts, and even if it’s a remote experience for now, I’m very proud of myself for getting here.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My childhood being so chaotic-I moved around a lot when I was little, it had an effect on my self-esteem growing up. My experiences wouldn’t align with everyone at school and with that, I felt like I was unimportant. This childhood trauma and feelings of alienation followed me to adulthood. Sometimes it’s an inevitable inescapable feeling. I think that because of that, I never attached worth to any type of work that I did, I made myself small on a daily basis, and doing so would cause me to self-sabotage my own work and be really confused whenever I would make/achieve something others thought was amazing. Dealing with myself had always been a struggle of mine. I’m my most worst and heartless critic. A lot of my struggles were just dealing with myself and learning how to validate my own existence.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work started off as a self-explorative process which turned into something way more complex as I started making more. Personally, my paintings are a way to process childhood trauma and create an imaginary space where intrusive harmful realities coexist with child-like perceptions of the world. I’m creating these spaces that depict a lens of being both in my head plus existing in reality at the same time. I paint objects that obsessively appear again and again with each painting (For ex. a girl under a blanket). They don’t really have a concrete meaning to them. When I move them around with each new painting, it’s as if to abstract them into another idea that the viewer will want to know more about. My paintings will never have a complete answer to them for me or the audience, though I want to keep it that way. I want them to become so obscure the more someone tries to make sense of them. I would say I’m a painter, but I definitely am inching into video/installation work. I usually paint with acrylic and just got into oil. My pieces are usually done on board/canvas.

What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
I’ve learned that I need to be more kind to myself. I’ve been doing so well so far and I need to recognize that I’m perfectly capable of my future goals as long as I believe I can do it. I didn’t realize how much I was counting on my own self to get to where I am today. High-school-me didn’t even think that was possible.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keiokani/