Carmel artist Belle Yang channels suffering into beautiful paintings.

Agata Popęda here. Belle Yang is one of the most interesting people I’ve met since I joined the Weekly more than three years ago. Her aura is special and soothing.

Yang has lived in Carmel most of her life. In the shelter of her family house, she has created countless paintings, illustrations and books—inspired by her double Taiwanese and American identity 

Yang already showed her works in the Monterey Museum of Art in 1996, before she was diagnosed with AIDS. She is coming back as a survivor, her health is stable and she is living and walking, proving it’s possible to have a full life with HIV. The new exhibit, titled Imagining China: The Art of Belle Yang and Joseph Yang will be on display until Nov. 24.

But how and when does this story start? Maybe with the Japanese occupation of Manchuria (1931-1932), before China regained control of that land, considered wild and nomadic even by the Chinese. It was around that time Yang’s grandfather's family got united, just to experience more poverty and governmental abuse. Because of the hardship, Yang’s father traveled through China and settled in Taiwan, where he got married and where Yang was born. 

But there was yet another big family move, decisive in Yang’s life. This one was permanent—to California, eventually to Carmel. Her father didn’t want to get in trouble for just living and reading what he wanted.

“I don’t belong anywhere, really,” Yang says. “Everything feels kind of like home, but not quite.”

Please read my cover story and come see her exhibit at the Monterey Museum of Art (559 Pacific St., Monterey), where additionally Yang includes never-exhibited works of her father, who was also a painter.