All The World’s Her Art Studio
Photo courtesy Heleloa Media
One day when Suzanne Jennerich looks back on her career, she’ll be reminded of how a small idea turned into one of the biggest moments of her life.
The story goes that she woke up one morning in 2025, went to her art studio and decided to create a sign. The sign, however, would not feature the island themes that are often prominent in her designs and illustrations — themes like surfboards, hula girls and tropical flora, including her personal favorite, the protea flower.
No, this sign would be much simpler. Just a few words written in a different language and presented in large type and rich colors.
But first she needed the help of a friend, a fellow business owner whose boutique was located next door.
“My friend is Japanese and I noticed she would have people from Japan always coming into her shop,” recalls Jennerich. “So I asked her if she could write a message for me in Japanese. The message was basically, ‘Welcome to my studio.’ Then I did my best copying the (characters) over and posted the sign outside.”
It didn’t take long for a patron to notice the message.
“He goes over to my friend and asks, ‘Who wrote that?’ And she’s like, ‘Well, she’s an artist, but she’s not Japanese,’” Jennerich remembers. “He told her he thought the sign was ‘really, really good’ and that he wanted to meet me.”
Soon after, Jennerich was formally introduced to Mikio Watanabe, the president and CEO of Vitamin i Factory in Japan. His company manufactures the popular children’s bicycle Henshin Bike C14, which is designed to help youngsters learn to ride without training wheels.
Watanabe said he wanted her artwork to be a part of his Tokyo showroom. Jennerich said she was also interested in adding her colorful splashes to the Henshin bikes and helmets.
An agreement was made and the stage set for a long-lasting friendship — thanks in large part to the parties’ shared values.
“They want to make children happy and support them in their journey. They also believe their bicycle brand can bring children freedom and that’s what I love,” says Jennerich of Vitamin i Factory. “I basically grew up on bicycles, too. I had over 30 in my life and they always gave me a sense of freedom.”
Late last year, Jennerich — encouraged again by the idea of freedom and the notion of becoming a traveling artist — decided she would shut the doors of her Kailua brick-and-mortar studio, Aloha State of Art Corp., and take her paintbrushes and art supplies on the road. Currently, she is in the middle of a globe-trotting journey she calls Aloha Tour 2026, with scheduled stops in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka and Kyoto, Japan; and the European countries of Portugal, Spain, Italy and her homeland of Germany.
In reflecting upon her fateful encounter with Watanabe and subsequent choice to turn the world into her personal studio, Jennerich says, “I got more than I bargained for; the sign changed everything for me. It made me come up with the idea of traveling, working overseas and bringing aloha to the world.
“And it’s a good example of how something so little can make your dream come true.”
It isn’t difficult to be drawn into Jennerich’s world. After all, her artwork — full of bold strokes, vibrant colors and euphoric highs — can be captivating.
Like Watanabe and Vitamin i Factory, numerous design studios and publishing houses have, over the years, been impressed with her style and the joy that her art brings, and have contracted her services or hired her outright. Among the big-name companies she’s designed for are Gap Inc., Old Navy, Tommy Hilfiger, Banana Republic, Hollister and Esprit. Even Victoria’s Secret, Playboy, the NFL, the National Hockey League and, most recently, Map Travel — a Japanese travel agency that serves up a limited-edition non-alcoholic beer called Mizushima Blue — have come knocking on her door.
“That’s what most people always say,” she mentions. “They’re like, ‘I don’t know what it is, but your art just makes me happy.’”
And yet all her colorful pieces of art would seem rather dull without her effervescent personality and statement-making wardrobe to back them up. Midas may have had the golden touch, but Jennerich has the gilded temperament and sunny disposition that make the world around her smile.
Even Naragakuen Elementary School in Nara, Japan, was sold on her talents and uncanny ability to brighten people’s days. Earlier this year, the school — which Jennerich says sends its sixth-grade students to Hawaiʻi for two weeks each year — asked her to give art lessons to its fourth- and sixth-grade students, and Jennerich agreed to do so over a couple of days in April.
But first she needed to know if her body art needed to be concealed.
“I was like, ‘Do I need to cover up my tattoos?’ because I know the culture,” says Jennerich with a laugh. “But the school was like, ‘No, we want you exactly the way you are, so just go for it.’”
Much of Jennerich’s work consists of playful creations found on prints and illustrations for brands, as well as on greeting cards and customized nesting dolls. Large canvasses remain her medium of choice and this is reflected in mural paintings she’s done for Master Sha Tao Center in
Kakaʻako, Lei Palm and Reyn Spooner at
Ala Moana Center and the former coastal
boutique Sand People in Haleʻiwa.
“I still love to paint walls,” she says. “I think it’s because I’m just so free and I don’t feel trapped … space always means freedom. And if you work on a larger canvas, you can just express more of your feelings.”
Born in Hamburg, Germany, Jennerich recalls her childhood days being filled with pencils and blank pieces of paper for drawing. Her father was very artistic and made it a point to teach her how to sketch.
“I remember the good times on the kitchen table, sitting there with him and creating things as a child, and thinking, ‘Wow! I’m making something,’’’ she says. “Later on, I realized that I could still keep on doing the same thing, creating something and bringing joy to other people.”
Jennerich attended art school in Germany, but mixing colors turned out to be “too boring” for her. In the mid-’90s, she decided to relocate to New York.
“I knew of New York from movies and from magazines. I said, ‘This is the city where the best of the best is,’ and I needed to learn from them,” she states.
The move came with its share of challenges, though. Most notably, Jennerich did not speak a lick of English and that obstacle was most noticeable when hunting for jobs.
“I just thought that I’d let my work speak for itself,” Jennerich says. “I lived in Brooklyn at the time, so I got the Yellow Pages, went to a pay phone, put quarters in and started calling around to different advertising agencies. I didn’t speak but a few words, so when they would say more to me, I would have to hang up because I didn’t know how to respond!”
Jennerich soon landed a position at an advertising agency before moving over to The Gap, where she worked in fashion for five years. Ultimately, however, not even the Big Apple could keep her free spirit contained. What followed were moves to Sao Paulo, Brazil, then back to Germany, and finally to Los Angeles, California.
Eventually, her childhood dream of visiting the place “where Elvis Presley made movies” became too powerful a draw, and in 2016, she decided to plant her roots in Hawaiʻi.
“Growing up, we would watch the Elvis Presley movies and would see people with flowers in their ears and around their necks and I would think that that was paradise,” she says. “For a little girl in Germany, living in Hawaiʻi, or just visiting it, would be like asking for the moon.
“But one day, I woke up after two years in LA and I was like, ‘I gotta go.’ So I packed everything up, put some things in storage, sold the rest and came to Honolulu.
“It was the right thing to do.”
Her next thing to do is head back to Japan next month for the annual Hankyu Hawaiian Festival, which is held each summer in the Hankyu Umeda Main Store in Osaka. The pop-up usually features numerous Hawaiʻi brands and attracts well over 100,000 shoppers, and Jennerich is excited about being able to show her paintings and other creations there again.
“I’m used to people wearing my art. I’ve been doing it for over 30 years now and I’ve seen my stuff on TV or with people at the airports wearing my T-shirts.
“But when it comes to my paintings and someone chooses that one piece and puts it in their home, now that’s a very special feeling … it’s mind-blowing,” she adds. “It’s why I love to create; this was always the reason.”
