Yaoling Unveils Exhibit for Second Edition of Beautiful Belize City

Visual artist Yaoling Lee is gearing up to officially launch the second edition of her book Beautiful Belize City. The first edition, released back in 2024, showcased vibrant urban scenes from across the city, paired with writing from Lee and twenty‑two Belizean authors. After the success of that first release, she’s back with new paintings and fresh insight into her creative process. As part of the launch, Lee has opened the Beautiful Belize City exhibit at the Mexican Cultural Institute, now on display through April twenty‑third. We stopped by today to take a look at the collection and hear more about what audiences can expect from her upcoming book.

 

Yaoling Lee, Artist

“This is an exhibition of more than I think fifty f watercolor that include if I divide them. One third is the urban sketches which is right here. You can see a many feature in my book, beautiful Publicity. And to make this exhibition more interesting, I have a selection of, figure studies on the right hand side. And then I also have a selection of flowers, and those are all painting from life. If I talk about flowers, those are the flower from my backyard, or I purchase from outside pod and I paint in my backyard. And if it’s a figure study my sitter, she sit in my studio, then I do the study. And those are urban sketches right behind me. Those are the one I drive around Belize City and I sketch them. So in the book who is the best person to write my experience? Me, but I have to tell you, I’m not a writer. I write awful, but I think I can write my experience. I can tell a story. What happened when I was doing paintings. I’m the main person, write for this book, beautiful publicity, but then I recruit twenty-two Belizean writers. They are great, gorgeous, talented, Belizean writers.”