About Us

Exactly a year ago ALOHA IMAGES went into Covid 19 Lockdown. A lot has happened in those 365 days. The most unexpected happening was a sad one. On May 20th, 2020 our In House Artist, Seamus, passed away.

Almost anyone who has ever been in ALOHA IMAGES over the past 25+ years has either seen or met our eccentric Irish artist. And if you’ve met him, you’ve most likely heard many of his stories. Seamus loved to talk to his clients, gallery browsers, or anyone who would say aloha to him. The hard part was getting away from him once the stories started.

Seamus painted daily and was a part of ALOHA IMAGES since it started. He was our first artist. He painted in front of the original gallery across from the Kapaa Library, then moved indoors when we moved into the Dragon Building location in 2000. He painted in the front room for years, then moved to the middle room, and finally we gave him his own studio on the top floor of the Dragon Building, we called Seamus World, about 4 years ago.

As his 25 years flowed together at ALOHA IMAGES Seamus went from painting the tropical Hawaiian fishes he was known for, to experimenting with Hawaiian, artifacts, petroglyphs, florals, seascapes, landscapes, butterflies, Hawaiian extinct birds, whales, roosters, surfers, and antique woody surf wagons. You name it, he’d research the subject and would teach himself how to paint it.

Painting kept Seamus alive long past his own projected finish line of 54 years. That’s the age when his Dad and several relatives had died. I met him the 4th of July 1992. He turned 50 in November of that year and he told me he would be dead in 4 more years.

Well, Seamus made it to 77 and a half. He continued to paint until the day he died. His eyes were failing him so he taught himself to paint looser. He painted with a palette knife, becoming more of an impressionistic painter.  Rather than call it a career when he no longer could do his illustrative style, he evolved.

Why? Because painting daily kept him alive. He loved to paint and was a prolific artist. He’d already been painting almost 30 years when I met him. Once we opened the doors of ALOHA IMAGES we decided to wholesale his paintings to the public. He just wanted to share his work with his fans and make it possible for first time art buyers to actually own an original. He loved the support he got from his collectors. It wasn’t about the money to him. He just liked to see the happy faces people had when they said YES to buying one of his paintings.

And we at ALOHA IMAGES want to keep Seamus’ wish going. It’s been over 10 months since Seamus passed and we are finally ready to start sharing Seamus’ originals again. We’ve been going through his inventory and selecting special pieces new and old (he dated most of his work by the year painted either on the front or back of each painting). We’re now ready to feature special paintings every week and sell them to the highest bidder.

Depending upon the response, our goal is to select a different Seamus painting every week and “silent auction” it off. We’ll show the image, the size and a starting price (below wholesale) and let you art lovers bid on it. Probably start by doing $50 bid increases to start. We’ll select a day and time the bidding will end and whoever has the highest bid will get each week’s special painting shipped to them, shipping included in the painting bid price.

Seamus will be smiling down at us all as his paintings continue to find new homes where they will be loved and enjoyed daily.

P. S. Besides the silent auction, by summertime we hope to be featuring Seamus art on a revised version of his old website, seamusworld.com.