HuiPress artist in residence Max Gimblett, a New Zealand-born painter, moves easily between the worlds of Pacific Island art, Zen-influenced traditional calligraphy and contemporary American art movements.

A special reception and viewing of new work by Max Gimblett, who is participating in the major Guggenheim Museum exhibition “American Art and the East” in New York next year, will be held at 7 tonight in the HuiPress print studio at the Hui No’eau Visual Arts Center in Makawao. Gimblett will be discussing his body of work that comprises etchings and woodcuts based on his enso (calligraphic circle drawings in the Zen Buddhist tradition) and “Roshi stick whack drawings.” The artist is compiling prints that will be published next spring to coincide with his Guggenheim exhibition. Hui Artistic Director Paul Mullowney and printers Casey Neumann and Nichol Markowitz will also participate in the discussion. A sumi painting workshop with Gimblett started Wednesday and continues from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at the Hui where he is leading students through exercises in his unique style of Japanese sumi (ink) and brush painting, a meditative approach aimed at freeing the artist’s body and mind th