Painting joy, a Hapa artist uses the Santa Cruz landscape to promote peace

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(Hapa — originally a derogatory Hawaiian term for “half” — is now embraced by the Asian and Pacific Islander community, as an identifier that is better than “mixed” or “other.”)

Happy belated New Year, Santa Cruz. I actually start my year according to the lunar calendar, with Chinese New Year on Feb. 10. For me, starting later is a bit gentler and more aligned with nature. 

I spend a lot of time wondering where we are going, post-pandemic, especially as wars and diplomatic tensions escalate. Are you wondering this, too? Was the world in isolation for too long that we’ve forgotten our global humanity? Have we not yet evolved beyond this method of resolving conflict? 

Maybe we just haven’t applied the right focus. Or perhaps we’re using outdated tools. When my mind is troubled by issues beyond my control, I paint flowers.

Santa Cruz is an ideal location for this. Its natural beauty influences my artwork and fuels my imagination. Perhaps it’s because my Chinese name, Yuenfong, means “scent from the garden.” As a Hapa artist, my work often deals with identity, and expressing incomprehensible emotions. I paint to resolve pain, or to process the brutality of the world. My art takes an unstable reality and grapples with it through the canvas. It may take years, and many paintings, before I arrive in a better place.

As a sensitive person, I have to respond when the outside world affects my work. When the Russian “denazification of Ukraine” began in 2022, I started painting “The Tatarstan Series.” These are a series of family portraits from Russia. They tell a different story than what we read in the news. That year, my cousin housed two Ukrainian refugees in Switzerland. I wanted to share intimate stories of this war, reflecting our common humanness, rather than tales of bloodshed and starvation. Because my husband emigrated from Russia, because my father is a child-war survivor of World War II, themes of family and peace frequently emerge unconsciously through my paintings. 

It is extremely satisfying to pour my feelings onto the canvas. My mother struggled with pulmonary fibrosis for eight years, until she finally took her oxygen off. During that time, flowers became my refuge. I would often use color to lift my spirits. 

Language is another theme in my artwork. Incorporating different languages allows me to abstractify how humans communicate. As a visual artist, saying it with color sometimes makes more sense than using words, especially with non-native English speakers. 

Art can transcend language. 

Sometimes I’ll inscribe Chinese calligraphy as the first layer, to set the direction of a piece. Or I may use famous poems in Cyrillic script, or English, as a background element. This is an homage to characters printed on Japanese and Chinese scrolls. I use this device to infuse poetry into the art, even when the poems are illegible. 

The pandemic years encouraged intense art-making. As a Santa Cruz artist, I wanted to stimulate a conversation different from what dominated the news. 

In 2021, I published an Oracle deck based on the Chinese five elements, Asian archetypes and the Chinese zodiac. This was my COVID-19 project, offering an alternative to the confusion, hatred and pain that our country was experiencing. The deck is a synthesis of 25 years of tai chi practice, a decade of my work as a cranial-sacral therapist and Rosicrucian-based intuitive readings. Creating the deck was a healing process for me and intended to “light” a path for others. 

I am currently expanding the deck to include 26 new cards related to Tibetan Buddhism and the human chakra system. In these traditions, we find peace, compassion, understanding and wisdom: paths to harmonize personal and global conflicts. 

Santa Cruz also shares energetic similarities with Tibet. This explains the plethora of monasteries and retreat centers in our area. Santa Cruz attracts artists of all disciplines. Its beauty summons environmentalists, horticulturalists, nature and outdoors lovers. These special communities inspire creative dialogues and spark inventive conversations. 

We moved from San Francisco to Santa Cruz in 2006, when my husband was offered a position at UC Santa Cruz. Being away from urban distractions deepened my creativity. I feel so lucky to live in Santa Cruz, where the awe-inspiring Pacific coast and old-growth redwoods surround and embrace us. Humans are part of nature and we need to experience it to feel grounded, safe and to heal. 

In our globalized and deeply interconnected world, it’s easy to feel small in the face of environmental crises, institutionalized violence, systemic racism and lack of diplomacy. How does one bring peace and happiness from a single vantage point? Art is my reconciliation with this helplessness. I cover the paintings in flowers to make a scene less gray, less oppressive, less impenetrable. It empowers me. 

Here are my flowers. Here is my love letter to the world. Here is my wish for harmony and peace. 

Elizabeth Yuenfong Lee is a Hapa abstract artist working primarily in painting and mixed media. Elizabeth uses the energy of color to create a visceral experience for the viewer. She maintains a sense of humor and chronic playfulness, which fuels each piece with a wanton joy. Raised in Michigan, Elizabeth came to California to attend Stanford University, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in English. Early in her career, she illustrated “Na Tsoi Yona,” which uses the Cherokee syllabary to retell the classic children’s story “The Three Bears” (published by Noski Press). Elizabeth is the creator of the Inner Light Moon Oracle deck and guidebook, available in Santa Cruz at Hidden Peak Teahouse, and in Soquel Village at Avalon Visions, where she hosts Oracle nights. You can follow her on Instagram at @studiohozuki.