Mee Shim
”As a South Korean artist now living in America, my Face paintings are my translation of Eastern tradition and philosophy. I engraved the symbolic universes onto the human faces to represent the philosophy that the intuitive and introspective concept of self is united within the whole of the creation. In Taoist and Buddhist tradition Mandalas have been produced to depict symbolic pictures of the universe and as an aid to meditation. Mandalas can also be visualized in the pure emptiness during meditation. They are described as a symbolic world of reality, which does not exist physically, but exists beyond time and space."
Mee Shim was born and raised in Suwon, South Korea. She began studying, at age 11,with a local artist in her hometown. Prior to entering university, she took painting lessons at the studio of the well-known Korean artist, Lee Jung Ji for three years. Mee had her first solo exhibition at Gallery Samjung in Seoul just one year after completing the BFA program at Duksung Women's University in Seoul in 1992.
She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Wayne State University in Michigan in 1999. She taught at Indiana University, and has exhibited at Art Museums and many galleries in the United States, South Korea, and Europe. including, Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis, McDonough Museum of Art in Ohio, among many others. Shim has had lectures and exhibitions for numerous Universities as well.
Mee has been awarded fellowships and artist-in-residencies at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont, and at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. Her works were also chosen for Art Exhibition for 12th World Championship in Athletics in Berlin, Germany, 2009
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