Artist Statement | Helena Min

Early influences on my artworks - family, culture, and life event

My upbringing has significantly influenced this perspective. Raised in a Catholic family in Korea, I absorbed teachings on law, order, and the pursuit of skill perfection under Confucianism. My mother, an artist and art educator, instilled a creative spirit, while my father's background in physics and work as a nuclear power plant engineer added a scientific dimension. Buddhism and Zen provided avenues for meditation, contemplation, and spontaneity, while Shamanism heightened my awareness of the life force behind visual reality. Immigrating to the U.S. in 1988 triggered a deepened awareness of my roots and identity, shaping my perception, thinking, reasoning, and response to my surroundings.

During college, two trips back to Korea deepened my understanding of "yeobaek," the unoccupied space in Korean art symbolizing the void of all possibilities, akin to the creative process in the universe.

My focus

My focus has continued on "Forming the existence." From micro to macro universe, how all elements are interconnected and play the role in shaping or giving rise to the existence of all beings. I’ve been drawn to profound beauty in its process of creation as well as the created existence.

In the early 1990s, my artistic journey evolved from representation to abstraction, focusing on the void/yeobaek. Utilizing physical light as a medium, I worked with layers of Korean mulberry paper and transparent-colored silk called "Nobang." This process allowed the physical light in the environment to interact with my work at the moment a viewer is present and makes the surrounding physical conditions connected to my work.

The interconnectedness of elements from the micro to macro scale, highlighting their role in shaping and giving rise to the existence of all beings, is a theme in my practice. I remain aware of this profound beauty in both the process of creation and the resulting existence. My artwork reflects the intricate and harmonious relationships among elements that I observe in the nature manifested in patterns, systems, and the probabilities resulted from these patterns and systems.

Perception of physical lights. Physical light as a medium.

All photos by Helena J. Min

Sacred Relationship
Our universe is the largest form known to us. “Life_Self-organizing” and "Life sees itself" are a series of ongoing works based on how I perceive our universe as the following.

Everything exists in a relationship with others.
The relationships sustain the universe and form equilibrium.
My work is a visual event of relationships that seeks equilibrium.

In this universe, all elements are interconnected in relationships, through which the universe and our nature sustain themselves. Over the years, I’ve come to erase the boundary between “I” and the rest. Air I inhale is from outside of my body. Water consisting of 60% of my body is from outside of my body. My cells are regenerated daily with the consumption of other animals, plants, and grains. Plants need sunlight to transform the light into stored energy. We exist only in the universe through relationship(s). At the beginning of the 21st century, in our time of climate crisis facing the collapse of life on earth, this interconnected relationship is even more sacred and valuable.

Pattern / System / Probability - Manifested Sacred Interconnectedness

Theses images are from my Pinterest board titled "pattern/system/probability,"

which are the manifested images of the relationship/interconnectedness that sustains our universe.

All photos by Helena J. Min

Photos from Helena J. Min's board at https://www.pinterest.com/helenamin5/patternsystemprobability/

"Seeing" and how it is transformed into my artwork
My work is focused on seeing as they are, free from conditions of religion, culture, stored information, memory, knowledge and etc. When the world is experienced through such conditions, much of the experience of NOW is often altered and lost. Seeing without any preconditions makes it possible to see "as is" in the ever-present now.

All my seeings are transformed into my visual artwork that is how I communicate and express this life as a participant in this universe.