With a background in teaching biology and performing arts, Big Island-based author and artist Erzsi Kuba Palko has shifted her love of ecology and visual storytelling from the classroom and stage to the page in a new children’s book with opaque watercolor paintings inspired by ʻōhiʻa trees and native species.
“One of the most impactful experiences on my current body of work has been the privilege of taking a couple of extraordinarily rigorous botany classes at UH Mānoa with Dr. Cliff Morden and Dr. Celia Smith. Hours pouring over pressed plant specimens under the microscope, looking up Greek and Latin root words for scientific names, spending every weekend on 10-hour ridgeline hikes photographing native plants, and scouring shorelines with a magnifying photo lens treasure hunting for glimpses of native seaweeds formed the most challenging and inspiring academic experience of my life. Since I learn by drawing, I filled notebooks with native plant sketches while practicing to see with the eyes of a botanist. I was continually shocked by how much I didn’t know about the existence of so many insanely beautiful and unique native plant species and kept thinking, ‘Everyone here needs to know all this exists.’
A painting provides an opportunity to communicate a great deal of ecological information in a glance. Rhymes are the silliest way to hold things in memory. Combining the two in children’s books is my hope to help make our unique native species easy to remember, so more and more people — keiki to kūpuna — can connect with a sense of how much we have here to save.”
Erzsi’s paintings have been shown at the annual Hawaiʻi Nei Art Exhibition in Hilo, and can be found at the ʻŌlena Gallery in Hāwī and on her website. Her children's book, “Under the ‘Ōhiʻa Tree,” is available in bookstores and at Bess Press. Erzsi also has a coloring book of rhymes published with Petroglyph Press titled “Enchanting Creatures of Hawaiʻi Island.” Find her on Instagram, and listen to her interview on HPR's The Conversation.
This Artist Spotlight was featured in the Akamai Recap newsletter on Feb. 18, 2026. Get the latest on creative talent within your island communities by subscribing to the Akamai Recap here.
