'Landscape and Being',MI JU solo show
Fecal Face Dot Gallery, April 29 - May 22



There are only a couple of days left to see the paintings of Mi Ju at the Fecal Face Dot Gallery in San Francisco. A native of Korea, Mi Ju has been studying at The San Francisco Art Institute for the past year after getting her BFA from Yeungnam University in Korea.

“My work is an improvisation in liminality: between dream and concretized, ancient and contemporary, Korea and the West, ephemeral and eternal, the uncensored and codified. Each character, pattern and energy reflects states of consciousness that are revealed in the creative act, a form of both improvisation and organization wherein the uncensored is working in concert with momentary, yet specific compositional organizations. It is my intention that the work will be a place of meeting between memory, dream and fantasy, and concretized into meaningful visual terms.” -Mi Ju

Mi Ju plans to relocate to  New York to pursue her painting career and get her MFA at Pratt.

The more I look at Mi Ju's amazingly detailed work, the more I'm impressed by it. I just featured her in a post last week, but I stumbled upon some of her most recent works and they are truly mind-blowing.

To create her incredibly complex masterpieces, the 26-year-old uses acrylic, glitter, and lots of water on paper and canvas. "I don't usually sketch it out too much, she says. "I always start painting the eyes first, until I think it's perfect, because it makes me feel confident that I can complete the rest of the painting as good as the eyes. From there, the painting grows."

Settings, 2010
Ceramic plates and tiles
Overall: 10 ft h x 60 ft w x 2 in d
Project for cafeteria of PS/IS 276,

Battery Park City, NY
Commissioned by the NYC Department of Education and the NYC School Construction Authority Public Art for Public Schools Program, in partnership with the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art Program, Collection of the NYC Department of Education

Settings is a permanent installation for the cafeteria of PS/IS 276 that is made of hundreds of plates and square tiles that have been arranged into a colorful and dynamic composition. By collecting decorative plates from homes in the nearby Battery Park City neighborhood, this installation extends the domestic realm into the public setting. While the plates themselves represent individual participants, the wide range of designs collectively speaks to the diversity of the neighborhood. From the initial gathering process to the completion of the work, many generations of students will come to understand that they are a vital part of a larger community. Ultimately, Settings is both a literal and abstracted portrait of local families and is inspired by the belief that the foundation of education begins in the home.

Everyday Monuments, 2009
Sports trophies, painted cast and sculpted resins, projections
Floor Installation: Dimensions variable, approximately 7.33 ft h x 5 ft w x 45 ft d
Wall Projection: 9.33 ft h x 42 ft w
Commissioned by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. for the exhibition,

Everyday Monuments celebrates the unsung heroes of our society whose everyday labors go unrecognized.  Washington-area residents donated nearly two thousand trophies to Shin who then transformed each figure’s sports pose into the unsensational, yet distinctive gestures of day-to-day work.  The altered trophies are arranged on a long rectangular platform that recalls an aerial view of the National Mall.  Collectively, the shimmering gold figures create a dynamic topography of people typing, hammering, pushing a stroller, holding a tray, etc.  Life-size photographic composites of the figures are projected onto the gallery wall inviting the viewer to become one in the crowd.

Jean Shin