Kāne contributed to the understanding that Hawaiian culture arose not by accidental seeding of Polynesia, but that Hawaiʻi was reachable by voyaging canoes from Tahiti that were able to make the journey and return.

He painted views of war, such as The Battle of Nuʻuanu, the potential of conflicts between cultures such as in Cook Entering Kealakekua Bay, where British ships were dwarfed and surrounded by Hawaiian canoes, as well as quotidian scenes and images of ceremonial and spiritual life, that helped arouse pride among Hawaiians during a time of cultural awakening.

[4]: 11   Hitchcock, the first Hawaiian-born artist to achieve international recognition, focused on Hawaiian subject matter, especially the volcanic eruptions near Hilo.

According to Kāne, in addition to this early exposure to art and his parents' encouragement of his interest in drawing, his most formative experiences in childhood were in Hawaiʻi, where his father and family passed down the traditional folk tales of the islands.

However, Kāne found advertising work unsatisfying, noting that he grew tired of drawing the Jolly Green Giant, even after winning a campaign featuring the character.

[4]: 17 Kāne had been sailing a racing catamaran on Lake Michigan when he began researching Hawaiian canoes at the University of Chicago library and the Field Museum of Natural History.

[5] Kāne later stated that this purchase enabled him to move to Hawaiʻi, where he lived in Honolulu and continued his study of Polynesian voyaging canoes.

In Honolulu, Kāne attracted a group of sailing enthusiasts, including University of Hawaiʻi anthropologist Ben Finney and Tommy Holmes, author of The Hawaiian Canoe.

He wrote that in 1973 he, with a number of others at the time, realized that "if a voyaging canoe were built and sailed today, it would function as a cultural catalyst and inspire the revival of almost-forgotten aspects of Hawaiian life.

[4]: 32  He served as the skipper for two years as the canoe sailed trial cruises among the Hawaiian Islands to attract crew and support for its maiden international voyage.

"[13] Thompson also stated that Kāne's legacy is "transforming Hawaiʻi's society because he brought pride and culture and inspiration back, through the canoe....He is the father of the Hawaiian Renaissance.

[17] When Kāne turned his imagination to the legends of old Hawaiʻ I and the spiritual and mythological side of the Hawaiian culture, his work was more expressionistic, with bold brushwork and vivid colors.

His expressionistic style is seen in his painting Pele, Goddess of the Volcano for the Jaggar Museum at Kīlauea, which depicts the supernatural figure with fire in her eyes and flowing lava as her hair.

In the corner of the mural is a representation of the wayfarer's chart, traditionally made of shells and sticks, in which islands and ocean swell patterns are encoded to assist the training of a navigator.

One 1973 site-specific mural, painted on a custom-designed wall as part of a history center under construction (and never completed) at Punaluʻu Beach, gained notoriety twice.

According to a news report, "The mural shows aliʻi, warriors and commoners on the black sandbar, which separates Punaluʻu Bay from a pond where springs provide fresh water immediately behind the beach.....A ceiling of thatch gave the feeling of being inside an old Hawaiian shelter and the thatch hid lighting, which gave a natural, daylight look to the mural.

According to Kāne's account on his personal blog, quoting eyewitnesses, the wave pushed all the displays out the far side of the room and left a mud line three or four feet high on the wall—except on the mural, which was dry and undamaged.

[citation needed] His 2009 stamp for the State's 50th anniversary depicts a person surfing and people paddling a traditional outrigger canoe, all riding the same wave.

[26] This stamp engendered some controversy, as Kāne was critical of the typography in the final design, which he felt mistakenly substituted an apostrophe for the symbol that signals a glottal stop in the word Hawaiʻi and is known by the term ʻokina.