Atlanta-based digital artist Jenny Zhou’s ‘Fire Horse’ draws on traditional Chinese imagery and her interest in mythology and natural landscapes. (Courtesy of the artist)
Lunar New Year 2026 began Feb. 17 and runs through March 3. For four Atlanta-area artists of East Asian heritage, the season isn’t only a cultural marker. It’s also a source of material, memory, and meaning that finds its way into the work they make all year long.
For Jenny Zhou, an illustrator and digital artist who studied Computational Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Lunar New Year means handmaking dumplings with people she loves. “There’s something about spending time together while handcrafting little wishes for the new year in the form of delicious dumplings that reminds me of ‘home,’” she said. Even when she has spent the holiday away from family, gathering friends to make dumplings together brings the same feeling.
“In between loud, boisterous moments, we silently honor our ancestors and loved ones long gone, including our past selves who may not have been freely proud of our culture.”
Artist Tiffany “Tiffblot“ Chau
Painter Sarah Duff didn’t grow up celebrating Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year, but after her son was born in 2021, she started making tteokguk, a Korean rice cake soup eaten on the holiday to mark a fresh start. “Now we can enjoy it together,” she said. The dish and the culture it carries now appear directly in her paintings: vivid, small-format works depicting the Korean and Asian meals she grew up eating and has come to love again.
For abstract painter and muralist Christina Kwan, the holiday is tied to a table with cousins gathered around it, playing Bầu Cua Cá Cọp, a Vietnamese gambling game. “It’s one of the few things that connected my generation to my parents’ generation,” Kwan said.
Sarah Duff’s small-format paintings center food as a way into Korean and Asian culture. (Courtesy of the artist)
Christina Kwan’s ‘Mornings With You’ (2021) reflects her practice of pouring, washing, and mark-making with acrylic ink. (Courtesy of the artist)
What the work carries
Kwan, who creates in acrylic ink on canvas and paper and paints murals across the country, works in abstraction. Her longing for deeper familial connections surfaces in her pieces as sensation rather than image. “Sometimes that comes out as a particular color or as a series of brushstrokes,” she said.
Zhou builds the feeling of connection directly into her compositions. Her illustrations draw on traditional Chinese mythology, impressionism, and sustainable practices, and she often layers contrasting textures that seem to clash up close but resolve into something cohesive when viewed from a distance. “While everyone’s paths are different,” she said, “I believe we all have similar hopes and dreams, and that is reflected in my artwork.” Orange, the fruit and the color, also show up in her work around the season, a symbol she connects to abundance and the pleasure of sharing.
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For Duff, food is the most direct line between her art and her Korean roots. Each dish she paints holds a piece of the culture she wants her son to know, and that she’s come to know more fully herself.
The quiet parts
Atlanta watercolor artist Tiffany Chau, who works under the name Tiffblot, encourages people to fully appreciate the traditions and meaning of Lunar New Year. “In between loud, boisterous moments, we silently honor our ancestors and loved ones long gone, including our past selves who may not have been freely proud of our culture,” she explained.
Zhou puts it another way. Lunar New Year, she said, is not only a time for celebration — it’s a time for rest. “It’s a time to feel grounded with your loved ones and community,” she said, “to find your anchor in order to navigate the year ahead.”
That anchor shows up differently for each of the women— in a bowl of soup, the color orange, a coin game at a grandfather’s table, or a brushstroke that holds something words can’t. But the impulse is the same: to carry connections forward and to keep making them.
