About this Series

This series constituted a return to painting after over 20 years of having no access to canvases and paints. Leilani states that she is a "make do" artist in that she makes art in some pretty strange places. Two in this series were created in an 8 x 10 visitor room with the visit limited to 30 minutes. A room with no windows. Leilaniʻs peer brought canvases and three primary colors and modelled for her peer. For a painterʻs palette the artist used the top of a chinese take out container. Two of the paintings were painted under a 30 minute time constraint (which included eating the dinner brought in) and two of the paintings were painted in an ICU unit, when she went to visit her brother in his final days of life. One is a portrait of her brother, Michael Anthony Puʻu, and another, she worked her daughterʻs spouse, Bryan, into the painting.