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HONOLULU — Many shoppers have different ideas of an innovative gift. That includes those not overly concerned with having a "perfectly balanced personal budget" at the moment.
Island Art Galleries in Waikiki currently features a large, lifelike painting of Elon Musk, the innovator of Tesla Electric cars, SpaceX reusable rockets, an artificial intelligence research company and several more ventures.
"Maybe if Elon gives me some of his stock, I could actually buy that painting," said Johnny Kienoski, of Honolulu.
The oil on canvas portrait is in the window on Kalakaua Avenue near Hard Rock Cafe.
"It really caught my eye walking by," said a nearby pedestrian.
"I do like Elon Musk, he is an innovator," added Kienoski.
The painting is by Piao Xue Cheng, an artist from China.
When it came to deciding on an idea with Cheng, Island Art Galleries owner Jeff Liu said, "Why don't we do something American, so we had a discussion — who to paint for an American, and of course one of the (people) that I really admire is Elon Musk, a pioneer, entrepreneur, very successful."
According to Liu, the turbulent waves that you see behind Musk are symbolic.
"There are a lot of obstacles in his life; you can see the waves in the back crashing on the rocks, big undercurrents trying to throw him off, but he's always brave, he just keeps going," added Liu.
The asking price was originally $1.5 million, and it reportedly nearly sold.
After a few months, the price tag has now come down to $650,000.
The painting's apparently won over a Democratic employee at the gallery as well.
Liu stated, "She said, 'OK, the election's over; we don't need it in the window, nobody's interested in that anymore.' Put it back (inside the showroom), eventually the same employee changed her mind because it was drawing a lot of attention — some people were worshipping the painting (laughs)."
"It's a business; we didn't make a political decision, but it shows you politics kind of evolves in everybody's life," Liu said.
