A multimedia artist living in Hilo, Hawai’i, Maile Andrade is a professor of art at the University of Hawai’i.

According to Maile: “Imagery has documented the history, identity, and worldviews of native Hawaiian people. Native Hawaiians have used visual symbols and forms to represent their past and present life experiences. My work reflects and is rooted in a native Hawaiian worldview. I would like to explore and question through contemporary art forms and visual statements the use and perpetuation of stereotypes from many lenses. The questions used in the disciplines of ethnography and anthropology are challenging in the misappropriation of cultural practices, cosmology, and spirituality. There is a tension of time and space, distortion of social, cultural, and historical facts as if the events never happened in the way that the people remembered them. As indigenous peoples express the right to identify themselves, the picture of a diverse history will emerge and will challenge the use of native stereotypes and imagining the ‘Native Hawaiian.’”

Professor Andrade is an accomplished artist with her work having been featured in exhibitions such as Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation I; Contemporary Native North American Art from the West; Northwest & Pacific; ‘Ili Iho: The Surface Within at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu; and Te Mata at the Toimairangi Gallery in Hastings, New Zealand. In addition, she has lectured all over the world on her art as well as on Hawaiian and artist issues.

Maile holds a BA from the University of Hawai’i at Hilo and MFA from the University of Hawai’i Manoa.