Jane and Linus Chao are two successful Big Island artists. Their paintings hang in museums and private collections in North and South America, Europe and Asia. Jane's Morning Dew, a watercolor on gold leaf board, was purchased by the state of Hawai'i in 1983 and presently hangs in Washington Place, the governor's mansion in Honolulu. Several of Linus' pieces can be found in the Chinese National Museum of History in Taipei and the corporate headquarters of Hanna-Barbera Productions in Los Angeles.
Excerpts taken from article written by Susan James, which appeared in ALOHA magazine, July/August 1995 issue.

Jane Chao
Jane was born in Harbin, Manchuria, and brought up in Tokyo amidst diplomatic circles as an only child of a busy, high-ranking military attache. With no one her age to talk to and little to do, she turned to art. Her mother noticed her interest and, when Jane was nine years old, took her to a Japanese woman to learn painting. She later continued her lessons with a Chinese art teacher and truly began to enjoy her hours of painting.
Then came World War II. Her mother, younger brother, and Jane moved to Taiwan in 1948 where she received her English education at a Catholic college. While working in Taipei, she married the artist, Linus Chao. In 1969, with their four children, Jane and Linus moved to Hilo, Hawaii. In 1975, Jane began her career as a professional artist.
Her brush painting on gold-leaf paper, rice paper, and on silk are eagerly sought by collectors, including the State of Hawaii. Recently, Jane began using her technique and art material, watercolor on silk, to introduce her version of Hawaii. She had always been fascinated by the beautiful hula dancers -- their colorful costumes, their facial expressions,hand gestures and graceful body movements had long ago captured the heart of Jane Chao. In 1986, she had her first major one-woman show at the Volcano Art Center. Also in 1986, Jane won the Most Popular award from the Big Island Art Guild. In 1988, Alexander & Baldwin, Inc. selected Jane's painting "OBAKE II" for the cover of their AMPERSAND magazine. In 1989 Jane was awarded Second Place - Watercolor for the Mauna Lani Summer Arts Fest. Each painting takes hours of tedious work; therefore, she can paint only a very limited number of paintings in a year. Permitting more people to enjoy her art, several images of Jane's paintings have been reproduced for greeting cards and posters since 1985.
Jane's signature technique, watercolors drawn on specially treated Chinese silk, allows a softer look than paper. "The nature of watercolor is transparency," she explains, "so you don't use it as you do oils. You build many layers and each shade of color is one layer. Some pictures have hundreds of shades, so it takes a lot of time to do. You cannot imitate nature exactly, you must transform it to your own way of seeing. I go out and take photographs and then come back and translate it to my own vision. Chinese paintings usually are not three-dimensional, but I like to show three dimensions."

Linus Chao
Linus was born in the Chinese province of Shandong, where his father was a magistrate and mayor. Like his wife, he also discovered his artistic gift as a child. Linus made his way to Taiwan and spent four years at Taiwan Normal University. There he developed his love of watercolor design. After graduation, he went to work at his alma mater producing audiovisual teaching materials and leading seminars for secondary teachers in the summer.
Drafted into the Reserved Officers Training Corps, he spent 1955 and 1956 on the remote island of Quemoy, located about 120 miles west of Taiwan, working as a lieutenant in psychological warfare aimed at Mainland China. Together with American propaganda specialists, Linus helped to drop colorful plastic containers full of candy, cigarettes and political cartoons into the sea near the coast of China.
Linus' interest in animation developed during these early years, and served him well after his stint in the army. In the late 1950s, Taiwan Normal University selected him to go to Tokyo's prestigious Toei Animation Studio, where he worked on health education and children's films and also exhibited his own photography.
Back in Taiwan after two years in Tokyo, Linus met an American Jesuit priest well-known to the Hollywood community, who arranged for the young artist to go to California to study animation. In August 1963, Linus began taking courses at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. He watched the development of million-dollar special effects for the movie Mary Poppins and learned from Director of Animation Bill Justice, who also developed the talking Abraham Lincoln figure at Disneyland. While he was in Los Angeles, Linus was also invited to study animation at the Hanna-Barbera Studios, and Bill Hanna himself helped to fund his stay on the West Coast. Lynwood Down, special effects director for the 1963 movie It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, took Linus under his wing, and Pacific Title, a company that is responsible for ninety percent of the movie credit titles produced today, offered him a two-month internship.
Linus is regarded today as Taiwan's Father of Animation. When the Chaos moved to Hilo, Linus began selling his paintings almost immediately and was soon asked by Hawai'i Community College to join the faculty. In the spring of 1994, Linus was invited to Beijing to lecture and to help develop an art curriculum at Beijing University. His lectures proved to be so popular that he ended up teaching courses at three other Chinese unversities as well--Normal University, China Central Art Institute, and Central Arts and Crafts Institute.
Linus sees Art as a gift that should be openly shared, "Artists beautify the world, and by doing so we beautify our own spirits. Art is philosophy; art is wisdom. Art must serve but it must also lead. Through art, you find your own way to positively enjoy the world."