Artist Kris Chau remembers "that really awesome, famous mural" of Pele and the various Hawaiian deities at the Bishop Museum, and how it was made into a poster that hung in Hawaiiana classes in Hawaii schools.

"I think in every classroom I copied that poster in a notebook, or I would stare at that poster and redraw it in my head," she said. "And to this day I think I redraw a very similar type of composition. I just always loved the way it looked and it made me feel happy."

The McKinley High School graduate pays homage to that poster and her Hawaii roots in "Tiger Daughter Returns," a mural and associated works at thirtyninehotel in Chinatown, on display until Oct. 22. "I partially got here because of that poster," she said.

"Here," for Chau, is no longer Hawaii, since she now lives in Philadelphia. Instead, "here" is her place in the art world, which has been rising in spectacular fashion in the past few years. She’s been putting on "nonstop shows over the past four years" on the mainland and in Europe and recently joined a prominent art collective, Studio 1026, in Philadelphia.

Her work was described in Hi-Fructose, a contemporary art magazine, as "creating a fantastically sensuous world imbued with a careful balance of humor, heartbreak and modern femininity.

"Chau weaves snips of text about her life and on-hand inspirations into the poetically quirky works, adding an emotional depth to her luminescent figure drawings and portraits," the magazine said.

So her career path has worked out for Chau, despite her "very nonartistic upbringing" as the child of immigrant parents. She grew up in Makiki, the daughter of Vietnamese-Chinese hospital workers who envisioned their child pursuing a "safe" profession. Her life consisted mostly of study and work.

"I didn’t have sleepovers. I didn’t join sports," she said. "My parents thought any extracurricular activity took you away from studying. … I didn’t even know that you had summers off. I was raised thinking you had to go to summer school."

She turned to drawing as "the best activity you can do alone in between studying" and found her calling.

"I don’t think anyone that pursues art is ‘interested’ in pursuing art," she said. "I think people that pursue art do it because they have to, because they need to make art."

She took art courses at the Academy Arts Center at Linekona, working odd jobs to pay for tuition and materials. She also took courses at the University of Hawaii and went on to the California Academy of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco, later moving to Philadelphia because it was an affordable place to live as an artist.

Her main medium is drawing and sketching. She likes to use a crow quill instead of a pen to apply paint, even though it can be difficult to use.

"I like it because it has a really raw line quality," she said. "I love how crow quill line varies from so, so scratchy and thin to … really thick, and it’s really beautiful. And it’s harder to control, so it’s like you get these really beautiful, organic accents that you can’t get any other way."

Chau also works as a clothes designer in Philadelphia, which complements her work as an artist. But it’s obvious that she misses Hawaii.

"Everything that everyone has in Hawaii is the best in the world," she said. "You think everything in the mainland is going to be better, that everything from outside in the world is better, but in actuality it’s not. Everything in Hawaii is the best."