Christopher St. John's "Big Hand Blues" exhibition at Hawai'i Pacific University's Art Gallery contains all the components for a perception shift. The narrative in the 27 oil-on-wood-panel paintings and eight graphite and crayon drawings evoke a morphing of human forms that invite the viewer to engage in a spindly, alien world. That world, odd as it is, turns out to be the one we live in.

Born in North Carolina in 1964, St. John moved frequently as a child because of his father's career in the Marine Corps. After his father died at the age of 42, St. John decided to pursue the artist's life. He was 23. The peripatetic pattern continues in St. John's life. He had his own stint in the military and his wife, Faith, is still in the Army. She was recently deployed to Hawai'i from Iraq. They are here as part of her tour. She was previously stationed in Alaska, where St. John earned an art degree from the University of Alaska.

His work in the show is based on ancient Greek kouroi — statues of standing male youths. Although, says St. John, the works are not autobiographical, they are based on his observations as the stay-at-home father of his 10-year-old son, Devin.

With a rigorous work schedule and a scrupulous connection to his integrity and responsibility as an artist, St. John has given us a trick and a treat.

Q. You decided to become an artist at 23. Were you interested in the arts before that?

A. Yes, I've been painting since high school. But after I graduated I wanted to study music. I play the flute. So, I did a year at the University of Memphis as a music major, but that didn't work out.

Q. Why do you paint?

A. I have to and if I didn't I'd be doing something that wasn't as satisfying or fulfilling to me. When I started, it was something that I thought, well, I can do this until I'm dead. I thought, at least with art you're involved with things like truth. It just seemed more honest to me.

Q. Has it been a difficult climb?

A. Financially it's been difficult but as far as personally, no, everything has fit really well. I work really hard at what I do. It's important for me to follow my voice, be honest. Honesty seems like such a simple thing, but it is so difficult to be honest about what you are doing — and be mysterious at the same time (laughs).

Q. Does music inform your painting?

A. Oh yeah, I have to listen to music when I'm working. Usually, I listen to a lot of heavy metal bands. Working on this series, I listened to Isis and 16 Horsepower — a sort of goth rockabilly band. ... I work with oils on wood panels with a cold wax medium. The wax adds luminosity, matteness and thickness to your paints. I use a lot of knives and things and cut into the paint. The wax lets you almost sculpt the paint. It's a very aggressive, very direct way of working. With the music and the action of the painting, I guess I'm trying not to get in the way of the process. I'm letting the image do what it wants to do.

Q. How long did this series take?

A. The series took four months to finish. I work from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. every night. I sleep for a little bit, wake up and then get Devin ready for school. After I drop him off I come back and sleep for a bit more. I pick up Devin from school, work through the afternoon, make dinner and hang out with my wife — if she's home. After Devin goes to bed I go back to work. I do a lot of work during the day, like building the panels, because if I do that at night, I'll wake up the neighbors. My wife has been a great support for me. She's a great woman. I admire her a lot.

Q. What was it about Greek kouroi that you found inspiring?

A. They were interesting to me as a form. In my last semester I took an advanced drawing class and my professor let me do a series of drawings on them. I wasn't really satisfied with the ones I had done. ... They're men and they're naked. There are all kinds of taboos about showing male nudity in society. So, fast-forward to here and five years later. I had been doing a small series of portraits of boys and stuff that I do every day when I was invited to do this show. Coming back to these, I thought it would make a nice transition to add these small portraits of boys I am doing with these. It's basically the same material, but it lets me couch it in a more art historical context.

Q. Your paintings have unusual perspectives as well as other shapes and symbols.

A. All the paintings have strong narrative elements. They are all adolescent boys and they are in these weird transition places. When I started the series I did a lot of crayon and graphite drawings. ... The drawings map out the players — who wanted to speak, who didn't. I worked from there. There's bunnies, sexuality, stark landscapes, birds, cages — things that echoed in my mind as far as adolescence and pre-adolescence. My son and his friends are at that point, so, it's something I see everyday.

Some of the kouros figures are holding calves or goats, and they have the horns. When I painted "Somewhat Lost" I wanted it to be a transformational image. The boy has the horns. So, he's somewhere between the beast and something else. This thing he is holding in his hand is what's left over after the transformation. All the paintings have symbols that bounce back and forth. It's a balance between capturing a certain rawness of a human figure and trying to be honest about it through the material. I don't like a lot of finesse. I admire painters that can do that. But for me, it's not really honest to my experience. If it's direct and quick then the results are always better for me. The planning I try to do, for instance in this series, came in the form of hundreds of graphite drawings before I even started. That way, when I go to do the painting, I don't make as many mistakes. You don't take too many detours or side paths. You know the path you are going to follow and you lay out this channel and roll along side of it.

Q. What's up next for you?

A. I have a show at Bethel Street Gallery in March 2008 that I'm making wood constructions for. And next May, I'll exhibit "Transformations From Dream Geography" at the Art Center at Linekona. This series will not be about referencing my dreams particularly. When I work I try to stay out of the way as much as possible. But I've been thinking about complexity — in everyday life and in dreams. In dreams, you have these complex and conflicting threads and plots and it's all sort of entangled and interwoven. I want to try to paint that.

Victoria Gail White's artist Q-and-A appears on the last Sunday of each month.