About the artist:

Ira Ono is a multi- faceted visual and performing artist well known in Hawai'i for his fresh and innovative work. Ira is an artist who engages the viewer with a wide range of media and subject matter. His work is said to have an "altar-like" quality. A native New Yorker, he left the city in 1968 to explore the islands and eventually settled in the village of Volcano where he has opened Volcano Garden Arts. Ira's life in the Hawaiian rain forest and his discipline inspired an impressive new body of work in ceramic sculpture, masks, and dance. He has exhibited in galleries in Hawai'i for over a decade and his pieces have found their way into important collections in this country as well as Europe and Japan. Ira's masks reveal an elegant restraint and his unique style is clearly derived from a rich mythical past. Much of Ira's inspiration comes from living in a rain forest.