Hawai'i city and state governments may be on a crusade against graffiti, but elsewhere, street art is part of the urban landscape, with some of its creators clinching spots with top galleries. One of the genre's stars is Swoon (as with most street artists, she prefers that her real name not be used).

The New York-based artist, 29, is on Maui for two weeks as the HuiPress artist in residence at Hui No'eau Visual Arts Center in Makawao. She's producing her own work, and work with at-risk youth from the Alternative Learning Center in Pu'unene and the Hale Kipa advocacy program. She also is working with a group of advanced art students from Baldwin High School, led by respected teacher Janet Sato (who has mentored emerging local artists such as Kirk Kurokawa).

The Contemporary Museum had a similar program when it brought street-art godfather Shepard Fairey to Honolulu as its artist in residence in 2005. The man who has parlayed his street cred into lucrative work with youth-chasing brands such as Mountain Dew taught children from Kuhio Park Terrace how to make stencils. He was impressed with the work they produced and they in turn found a way to channel their creativity and energy.

Known for her graphic life-size sketchy block prints that she wheat-pastes on city walls, Swoon is teaching students woodcut printing and stenciling to create portraits of themselves and each other. They will become part of a larger group installation that will be on view to the public.

THE ROAD TO MAKAWAO

Hui No'eau artistic director Paul Mullowney saw Swoon's work at The Museum of Modern Art a few years ago. "(It was) a large print, and it was an amazing show and her work stood out," he said. "I immediately knew I wanted her to come to Maui and work. I thought it would be a good mix ... urban street art and our rural setting. I thought it would be great to bring our two cultures together and see what happens."

And so far, Swoon said by phone from Makawao, "it's been really good. We're just getting warmed up."

She studied at the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and if your notion of street art is hastily spray-painted names on the side of a bus stop shelter, her labor-intensive, finely detailed prints will change minds about the seriousness and skill of the movement.

While Swoon works with such highbrow venues as Deitch Project, she still prefers putting up her eye-catching portraits in public. You can see in her work portraits of people, melding with scarred brick walls, the remnants of other pieces mixing with hers to create beautiful patchworks.

And it's clear that her brand of art is appealing to youths who gravitate to tattooing and graffiti.

"These are entry points for kids to become interested in art," said Swoon in her quiet, girlish voice. "There's a lot of cultural crossover there, with the fine-arts things that wouldn't interest them intersecting with forms of art that are more part of their lives."

STRONG CULTURAL IDENTITY

In her interaction so far with kids, Swoon has been struck by their strong cultural identity.

"With a lot of the kids," said Swoon, "the specific Hawaiian culture and pride in their culture is different than other high school kids that I've worked with in New York. It seems like connecting with the culture is important to them."

She cites some of the themes and motifs students use, such as requesting red, gold and green for spray stencils.

"One girl," she said, "signed her name and wrote 'Hawaiian' after it."

Another student, said Swoon, remarked that she didn't think art could be fun. "She was really getting into it," said Swoon, "saying 'I'm going to change my career, now I'm going to be an art teacher.' That was cool."

"To see those kids who have never been exposed to this ... you could see the influence ... it may at least keep them in school," said Mullowney.

While the students from the Alternative Learning Center are expressing themselves through art for the first time, some of the Baldwin High School students are well aware of Swoon's status in the street-art world, which spreads its news with viral speed through Web sites such as www.woostercollective.com.

"A lot of the Baldwin kids knew of Swoon's work and were so excited to work with her. One kid from Seabury said to his mom, 'I've been following Swoon's career since I was 6 years old,' " said Mullowney, chuckling.

Swoon also is concentrating on completing a 9-foot-tall linoleum block print of a Thai woman. She recently traveled in Thailand and brought images with her to work with. She also had to bring her 9-foot roll of linoleum. Even for work of that size, she usually does the printing herself, "by walking on it," she said. On Wednesday she was drawing on linoleum and planned to start making prints by this weekend.

On her first visit to Maui, and staying at Hui No'eau's 1917 Mediterranean-style mansion on 25 acres away from the tourists of Kapalua and Kihei, working hasn't been so easy. The island's beauty is "totally distracting me," she said, laughing. "I just go outside with my mouth hanging open."

Originally from Florida, Swoon surfs, and the other day she drove to Hana and found some waves. And the drive? "I didn't even realize ... I thought 'I'll go 44 miles — no big deal.' " she said, laughing knowingly.

ART AS COMMUNITY TOOL

Swoon started out doing "billboard alterations," a direct statement on all the messages being thrown at us, without our being able to respond.

"For me, the value of having graffiti is you create a situation in cities by where you have spaces that are public. I think of (street art) in a civic-minded way. You have a town, you have places where people can feel free to express themselves, then you have an outlet for people."

Although Hawai'i has outlawed billboards, there is still a lot of public advertising. "There's this feeling that there's this one-way communication going, people don't have a means of communicating back." Work like Swoon's is a way to get the noncorporate message across.

"If you think about a person who just uses the very simple tools in their hands and can communicate with the whole community — that can be very positive," said Swoon.

She plans to leave some of that positivity behind. Not just in the installation she and the students will create at Hui No'eau, but also in public around the island.

Just as Shepard Fairey wheat-pasted his Hawai'i-influenced posters inflected with modified quilt designs and endless summer surfers at Makiki Skate Park, with the blessing of the Parks and Recreation Department, Hui No'eau is talking with the Pa'ia Youth and Culture Center about letting Swoon put up work there.

Fairey also made his mark on undesignated areas — such as his big poster of Andre the Giant staring out from Queen Theater on Wai'alae Avenue, or his mini Andre sticker patted onto a utility box near Star Market on Beretania.

With any luck, Maui residents will have the smile-inducing experience of turning a corner in Wailuku and seeing a figure — maybe a Thai boy — running across a wall. A tiny moment in the day that makes one swoon.

Reach Lesa Griffith at lgriffith@honoluluadvertiser.com.