Mexicana Artist Helen Yanez depicts Purépecha heritage to highlight Mexican culture

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Helen Yanez said she was always the kid walking around with a coloring book when she was little. In class, instead of taking notes, she would doodle in the margins of her notebooks. Even today, whenever she needs to write something down at work, she tries to make sure she always has her bright pink pen on hand. 

Now 24, Yanez is a full-time artist and professional illustrator. Yanez said she uses her art to display her people as human beings, resisting forces from the current political climate seeking to strip them of their humanity.

“I follow the methodology of art that has been written through books, but, as an artist, you almost get like an itch,” Yanez said. “When I view my different sketches, I have to move things around to scratch that itch in my head. When I move certain things and play with color, texture, finally, that itch disappears.” 

No two of Yanez’s illustrations are the same. Each one introduces a unique design style with a mix of colors. 

The pastel colors of her Frida Kahlo piece complement the high contrast between the purples and yellows in her Selena Quintanilla-Pérez drawing. The nighttime scene featuring flickering candles at a Día de los Muertos altar juxtaposes the poster she illustrated for Art After Dark showing a farmworker who’s supposed to be a male version of the Virgin Mary passing through a strawberry field. 

As someone who grew up studying contemporary European styles and viewing art through that lens, Yanez said she tries to decolonize art through her illustrations. 

“We view U.S. history as the real history and Indigenous American history as something on the side,” she said. “I want people to see that Indigenous art is art on its own. It’s not just an elective or a little branch of European art.”

On May 30, Yanez will host Nuestra Lotería, a public exhibition showcasing the artwork of 220 students from Ernest Righetti and Santa Maria high schools at the Santa Maria Fairpark.

Yanez also serves as the arts program manager for Corazón del Pueblo, a cultural and creative arts nonprofit located at 120 E. Jones St. in Santa Maria

“We use art as an ounce of prevention, rather than a pound of cure,” she said. 

As an Indigenous artist, Yanez tries to bring her culture’s collective approach of coming together as a community to the art world. 

Along with illustrating a cover for a booklet telling musicians what notes they need to play for Mexican Christmas songs, Yanez also designed a mural for Mexican boutique store Novedades Mexicanas and an album cover for Los Tranquilos.

Last year, she created a piece of wall art for Orgullo Wine in Santa Ynez that’s half a print depicting El Chavo del Ocho star Roberto Gómez Bolaños, aka Chespirito, the subject of the recent HBO Max drama Chesperito: Not really on purpose, and half a wine barrel emerging from the wall. Just like the HBO drama’s title, the phrase at the top of Yanez’s wall art, “fue sin querer queriendo,” is a famous saying from the ’70s sitcom that Yanez said roughly translates to “it was an accident, but not an accident.” 

Always proud to show off her heritage, Yanez makes sure she looks the part. She said her clay earrings came from Chumash-based Xochipilli Jewelry and her huipil, a traditional Indigenous tunic, from vendors at local fairs. 

“People are like, ‘Why are you wearing that? It’s not Cinco de Mayo,’” Yanez said. “This is what I grew up wearing. I like it. I look good in it.”

Yanez urged critics both within and outside of her culture who tell her to assimilate to remember that it’s OK to be a “little on the side.”

“I can dress differently, but I’ll still have my thick, long hair. I’ll still have my brown skin. That cannot be assimilated,” she said. “I just embrace it. And I feel comfortable doing it—with myself and my art.”

Yanez said she was able to handle the sting from inconsiderate and unempathetic Instagram comments after the 805 Immigrant Coalition opted to repaint on canvas her Welcome to Santa Maria illustration. That painting depicts a light-skinned ICE agent arresting a darker-skinned man with a butterfly on his shoulder in a strawberry field.

She said she was eating dinner at Panera Bread when she got the news that a local community member was arrested by ICE agents, inspiring her to create the illustration.

“They were about to close,” Yanez said. “I just felt that itch that I needed to showcase this. I did it in 20 minutes.”

She said she hopes her more controversial pieces like the Welcome to Santa Maria one help critics realize that her community is “in survival mode” and consider demonstrating more empathy. 

“I did this because I work with a lot of youth, and every morning they fear their parents might go through this on their way to work or back home. For me, that was essential to showcase,” Yanez said. “As an artist, I love making pretty art. I love making colorful art. But I also think it’s my duty as an artist to illustrate the current reality I and the people I love are going through.”

Send Staff Writer Reece Coren your original art at rcoren@santamariasun.com.

This article appears in May 29 – Jun 8, 2025.