Leilehua Lanzilotti

Tracing O’Keeffe — eight voices (anticipated 2027)

Tracing O’Keeffe is co-commissioned by Roomful of Teeth with support from the National Endowment for the Arts

The proposed project

Tracing O’Keeffe is a new work for eight voices. Tracing and retracing Georgia O’Keeffe’s steps on Maui, at her home in Santa Fe, and an adventure to Europe, I engage with O’Keeffe’s observations of landscape, environment, and the passage of time through an indigenous lens.

Using O’Keeffe’s unique approach to recreating four-dimensional landscapes on a two-dimensional canvas as a starting point, my work will draw text from her writings, letters, and the titles of her works transformed into cento, a poetic form I frequently use for lyrics / libretti.

As a composer based in and with a deep connection to Hawaiʻi, I am drawn to the series of works that were painted during O’Keeffe’s time on Maui. O’Keeffe’s trip to Hawaiʻi in 1939 was funded through the patronage of the Dole Pineapple Company (“O’Keeffe’s Hawaiʻi,” The New York Times). The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum has a collection that includes both sketches from O’Keeffe’s time in Hawaiʻi, as well as additional paintings of ʻĪao Valley. However, I love viewing the four works housed at the Honolulu Museum of Art displayed as a set, allowing for observation of the subtlety of differences in color, time of day, and cloud cover in the mountains. Through initial research and development on Maui in November 2021 and April 2024 (with Merwin Conservancy as host / community partner), I visited ʻĪao Valley and the lava bridges on the Hana Coast to further spend time watching the colors change and observing the environment in the way O’Keeffe did: through slow observation and practice-based research over time. Layering O’Keeffe’s artistic observations with my own knowledge of this historically and culturally significant place, I will engage with the contradictions of this wahi pana as a sacred burial site, the location of The Battle of Kepaniwai (where Kamehameha made important strides towards unifying the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi), and a location that tourists visit to connect with O’Keeffe’s brushstrokes.

In Santa Fe—the place most frequently associated with Georgia O’Keeffe—The O’Keeffe Museum is currently engaging with an indigenous response to O’Keeffe’s work in an exhibition titled Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country which honors Tewa people, art, and culture and interrogates O’Keeffe’s assertions of ownership and descriptions of “untouched” land in New Mexico. Following initial research and development in June 2024, in April 2026 I will return to do initial experimental workshops with Roomful of Teeth at the School of Advanced Research (SAR), as well as engage with the curators and artists of the Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country exhibition. Connecting these experiences to my own as an indigenous artist who is reckoning with the work will be instrumental in moving this portion of the project forward. Being able to return to Santa Fe in the context of these new conversations will allow for a deeper understanding of the paintings, and for me to continue to develop a relationship with the surrounding community.

Finally, in Europe I want to explore the idea of scale and distance, specifically related to paintings such as Only One which O’Keeffe was inspired to create after flying over the landscape on a trip to Europe. The artist reflected that from this distance and height, the landscape blurred into abstract patterns. Actively seeking high points to observe the city I will be also incorporating the idea of blurred time—where modern technology and life are layered and juxtaposed with historical architecture and sites where not only were materials reused in layers through time, but the meaning of the works is made more powerful through being able to explore the space in layered time by walking down into the lower levels of the site.

As a whole, Tracing O’Keeffe will amplify the idea of exploring O’Keeffe’s different scales of perspective—the dense closeness of her flower paintings, the mystery of her landscape paintings, and wear of time seen at a distance from high above in her abstract cityscape paintings. The work explores musical scale through the expressive parameters of form and gesture.