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.

As a seer making the invisible forces of existence visible, my work becomes a creative event that reflects the delicate equilibrium sustaining the universe. With over thirty years of continuous practice, my artistic journey has been a process of observing and translating interconnectedness—the delicate relationships that bind all things. As a visual artist and seer, I seek to reveal these intricate and harmonious relationships that I observe in nature. Regardless of the medium I have worked with—whether fiber, drawing, painting, mixed media, sculpture, 3D scanning & character creation, or photography—each work has been a journey toward a visual event of relationships that seeks equilibrium, as in this universe, every element is interconnected, woven together in delicate balance.

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

Without conscious beginning, my process often arises from countless observations of interconnected relationships. The work unfolds organically, like mixed pieces of a puzzle finding their place, or like the elements of one life becoming part of another within the cyclical flow of existence. For a seer, the process becomes a meditation—an act of processing what has been seen.

I approach each work as a creative event. My process is slow, reflecting the numerous transient perceptions that gradually build into one body of work until equilibrium emerges. Rather than standing outside the world as an observer, I see myself and nature as one continuous field of being. Through seeing, perceiving, and creating, I become a medium through which the universe becomes aware of its own existence.