HONOLULU.- This fall, the Honolulu Museum of Art presents Noah Harders: Moemoeā, meaning “to dream” or “fantasy” in Hawaiian. Based on Maui, the Native Hawaiian artist creates wearable art made of found organic and manmade materials, and his debut museum exhibition will be on view Nov. 3, 2022–July 27, 2023.

As the title of the exhibition suggests, the artist draws inspiration from his love of nature, reimagined through fantasy. Moemoeā embodies Harders’ approach to his practice of constructing and photographing masks and wearable garments made from discarded natural and manmade materials, such as flowers, molted crustacean shells, fish bones and beach glass. He has recently garnered acclaim as an emerging artist with provocative photographic self-portraits in which he dons these unique masks and headdresses. Each one shot in his home studio, the photographs draw viewers into the artist's interior world of surrealist fantasy.

“When I put on these masks, I feel like I am embodying the spirit and essence of seemingly ordinary materials that can be found around us...These pieces are a way for us to step out of the harsh reality we are consumed by every day, and simply have a moment to dream and feel inspired by what surrounds us on this earth,” said Harders.

“Noah’s unique creations explore the beauty and possibilities of the often overlooked parts of nature through his use of found and discarded materials,” said Aaron Padilla, curator of Noah Harders: Moemoeā and HoMA’s director of learning and engagement. “His work gives us permission to see the world—and ourselves—in new and different ways.”

Noah Harders: Moemoeā will be shown in conjunction with two related floral-based exhibitions: Rebecca Louise Law: Awakening (on view through Sept. 10, 2023) and Cross Pollination: Flowers Across the Collection (on view through June 4, 2023). Awakening features renowned British artist Rebecca Louise Law in her debut exhibition in Hawaiʻi. Her immersive floral installations of strung flowers, leaves, shells and other organic materials explore the complexity of human connection to nature through themes of symbolism, consumerism, sustainability and life cycles. In Cross Pollination, HoMA activates a variety of floral artworks from across the museum’s permanent collection, which includes iconic works by 17th-century Flemish floral masters, Japanese screen painters, paintings by Impressionists and Post Impressionists and works by Hawaiʻi artists, past and present.

Maui-based artist Noah Harders was born and raised in Waikapū where he lives on land that was inhabited by his ancestors for hundreds of years. Harders attended The Art Institute of Chicago and returned home to Maui to create wearable art made of flowers, leaves and other found organic and manmade materials. Harders describes his growth as an artist spanning multiple practices including installations and photography as a “crazy progression of finding myself.”