This is how an animation starts ..

Hand painted ocean (HD) from mirena rhee on Vimeo.

animation still - click for a high res image

animation still - click for a high res image

V6 ( Brooklyn Machine series ) - 4 x 6 inches, pen, ink, gouache and acrylic on hot pressed board, 2011

This piece went this past weekend to Cheim & Read’s Postcards from the Edge.

The ultimate geek list of pigments used in Indian Painting:

White pigments:
1. Lead White ( basic Lead carbonate )
2. Zinc White ( zinc oxide )
3. Chalk ( calcium carbonate )

Red/Orange:
4. Cinnabar ( Mercury sulfide )
5. Vermillion ( Synthetic Mercuric Sulfide )
6. Lac ( primary colorant Laccaic Acid )
7. Red Lead ( Lead tetroxide/orange red )
8. Realgar ( Arsenic disulfide/bright orange red mineral )
9. Saffron ( Crocetin and Crocin )

Yellow:
10. Opriment ( Arsenic trisulfide/soft yellow )
11. Indian Yellow ( Magnesium euxanthate/ originally from the urine of cows fed mango leaves )
12. Gamboge ( yellowish orange )

Green:
13. Verdigris ( Basic Copper Acetate/dark bluish green pigment )
14. Malachite ( Basic Copper Carbonate )
Mixtures to make green – Indigo and Indian yellow

Blue/Violet:
15. Ultramarine ( Natural Ultramarine is the ground, separated blue particles – lazurite – from the gemstone Lapis Lazuli )
16. Azurite ( basic Copper Carbonate/frequently found adjacent to Malachite )
17. Indigo ( Indigotin )

Earth Pigments:
18. Iron Oxides

Black/Gold/Silver/Tin:
19. Carbon
20. Gold Ink ( Gold particles with gum ), similar with Silver and Tin ink

21. Beetle wings ( to represent Emeralds )

Inks:
22. Carbon inks ( Lamb black )
23. Metallo-gallic ink
24. Indian ink ( naturally )
25. Willow Charcoal
26. Lamp Black ( soot from fat, oil, tar )
27. Ivory Black

Gums:
28. Ghatti gum
29. Suresh
30. Gum arabic

Hosted by Cheim & Read, 547 W 25th St, New York

The Preview Party is tonight:
Friday, January 6, 2012 from 6:00 – 8:00 PM

Benefit show:
Saturday, January 7, 2012 from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Sunday, January 8, 2012 from 12:00 – 4:00 PM

The twist was that my friends and participants didn’t know that all the walls were tarped for painting.., I advertised the event as a sit down dinner with all the trimmings of a family event. I wanted to completely detach the action from a specific result and let things unfold.

..and here are the results

\\ Ink, brushes, charcoal, sharpies, pastels on butcher paper, red lights

The next day, I took photographs of all the walls in natural lighting..

In addition to drawings, there Were-Rabbits, poems and cryptic messages..

even a Were-Man..

Occupy Wall Street and Magritte also showed up.. with parts of a Christmas tree

And how do the grand Satyagraha at the Met Opera, the De Kooning exhibition at the MOMA, the La Carte D’Après Nature show at Matthew Marks gallery, moving studio 4 times, shaking hands with 470 people in three days during Open Studios compare to my brother’s fishing – they don’t even come close second.

Fishing is a philosophy and also a sport, a very zen way to gamble and a fusion of the Romantic and the Classical way of thinking. You could be well prepared, in a Classical way, to fish.. but fish has the very Romantic approach of not getting caught.

Insofar as we understand the universe – if it can be understood – our doings must have some desire for order in them; but from the point of view of the universe, they must be very grotesque. As a matter of fact, the idea of “order” reminds me of something Jack Tworkov was telling me that he remembered of his childhood.

There was the village idiot. His name was Plank and he measured everything. He measured roads, toads, and his own feet; fences, his nose and windows, trees, saws and caterpillars. Everything was there already to be measured by him. Because he was an idiot, it is difficult to think in terms of how happy he was. Jack says he walked around with a very satisfied expression on his face. He had no nostalgia, neither a memory nor a sense of time. All that he noticed about himself was that his length changed!

Willem De Kooning, written in 1950 for a lecture series at Studio 35 on Eighth Street in New York.

Ultra Violet

says 99 percent certainty is 100 percent certainty.

Quantum Tunneling

Quantum Mechanics says a particle has a definite probability of being anywhere in the entire universe. Although any real distance from the particle’s expected classical path is infinitesimally small, since Quantum Mechanics is a statistical theory those small probabilities must be counted! Quantum Tunneling is a fascinating effect that arises out of these small probabilities. ( I certainly, 100 percent didn’t write this )

Bhagavad Gita

Philip Glass’ Satyagraha is based on Bhagavad Gita and sung entirely in Sanskrit, without titles for the audience. Bhagavad Gita says the world is not for the doubting man.

Math is a language, and choosing Peet Mondrian’s colors is no accident, for Math is not only an abstract language but also a visual language. Visualization in mathematics, or mathematical notation, was invented in the 16th century and it immensely liberated mathematical discovery. Like musical notation, modern mathematical notation is strict and a few symbols could convey very complex ideas.

Exponents

Radicals

I went to mathematical high school and participated in a few Mathematical Olympiads, although I am the worst student of math as I relied mostly on my pattern recognition ability rather than study. When I moved to the States I did some of the  comprehensive IQ tests and scored pretty high; but my pattern recognition was the highest at 147. I have my own definition of pattern recognition and it’s the ability to predict an outcome based on two or three reference points. As in life and math, trouble is if you think you have two or three reference points but in fact only one is a solid ground and the rest.. simply conjectures.

Some of the Mensa tests I take for fun do involve little math but sometimes they do refer to elephants, some with pink and green stripes, some all pink and some all blue..

To feel and to observe are the two most powerful weapons an artist uses.. on himself. When you are out in the world you really see, you dissect the world down to the particles and reverse back through to the whole to construct a mental image, however distorted. You later bring these images to the canvas. In front of the canvas, you feel. To observe and to feel are somehow in a quantum entanglement, the better you observe, the better your ability to feel. You see a brick for what it is and then you really see it, for what it isn’t, a sort of stereo vision which overcomes the senses. That’s why if someone feels one, an artist feels ten. You need that feeling powers ten in order to get the feeling flick through to the brush ( or whatever tool is there ) and via the paint – onto to canvas and from there to the viewer. The feeling needs to have that power in order to travel.

The confusion is that art is about learning how to draw or paint, that ability to render some ( or even strange ) reality. I think art is about learning how to feel. To feel is a powerful narcotic and immensely seductive. It is the blue pill, and the red pill simultaneously.

Joan Mitchell at Cheim & Read

Friedel Dzubas at Loretta Howard

Life existed for 3.5 million years without the ability to see. So the thinking among  scientists is that life didn’t need the ability to see in order to exist. I am hoping it will take me a bit less than that to learn how to see.

Mirena Rhee - New York One Way, 16 x 20 inches, pen, ink and brown wash on paper, 2011

Mirena Rhee - New York Red, 14x19 inches, dip pen, ink and red wash on paper, 2011

Hand Painted Ocean - Tsunami ( Japan series ) - 40 x 30 inches, dip pen, ink and brown wash on paper, 2011

I would like to invite you to my Pen and Ink Drawings Open studio as part of High Line Open Studios Chelsea 2011 – Oct 14-16, 526 West 26th street, suite 723, Fri, Sat and Sun 12-6 pm. I will be participating with new pen and ink drawings.

Preview exhibition and opening reception party will be held at 551 West 21st Street, ground floor, the corner of West 21st Street and 11the Ave.
The Preview Exhibition will be open to the public for the weekend event, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, October 14 – 16, 2011, from 12:00 to 6:00 p.m.

My biggest thanks to Painter and true Londoner Ian Mack with whom I will be sharing the Open Studio space this year. Please, support his work: http://www.ianmackstudios.com/

There are many other participating artists, all within a few blocks around West 26th street in Chelsea. If you can’t make my studio perhaps you can visit theirs: http://www.highlineopenstudios.org/artists.html

“The exhibition  features the first presentation of works from the David Byrne’s new Apps series from 2011. The works are advertisements for witty applications authored by Byrne that speak to the rapid proliferation of apps for the iPhone and other smart phones..”

“The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
“Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
“We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family.
“The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.
“The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give to the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
“If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.
“Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
“This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
“One thing we know: our god is also your god. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
“Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbyevto the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
“When the last Red Man has vanished with his wilderness and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?
“We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it, as God loves us all.
“As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. One thing we know: there is only one God. No man, be he Red Man or White Man, can be apart. We are brothers after all.”

Open States - Earthquake ( Japan series ) - 30 x 40 inches, pen, ink and brown wash on paper, 2011

Open States – Earthquake, drawing work in progress from mirena rhee on Vimeo.

Rough cut of the making of my latest painting dealing with the disaster in Japan: Open States – Earthquake, 30 x 40 inches, pen and ink on paper. The painting is the first in a series prompted by my dream about an earthquake, a dream I had about 48 hours before the earthquake in Japan struck.

Open States - Earthquake ( Japan series ) - work in progress fragment, 30 x 40 inches, pen, ink and brown wash on paper, 2011

Unfinished business – a fragment of my latest yet-to-be-finished painting dealing with the disaster in Japan: Open States – Earthquake, 30 x 40 inches, pen and ink on paper. It will be days before the painting is completed, it is still quite raw. And it will change by the time it is finished. But just like its subject matter – I was anxious to preserve this current crumbling state. The painting is the first in a series prompted by my dream about the Japan earthquake, which I had about 48 hours before it struck.

May is a month of growth in the art business and a number of great artists have shows all over Chelsea. Richard Tuttle’s vigorous presence at Pace Gallery with pretty large follies that oozed spirit. Jasper Johns who was in attendance of his show opening at Matthew Marks Gallery in Chelsea and seemed to very much enjoy himself amidst his many works and the crowds, who seemed to enjoy it too.

Today also marks my one year anniversary of living and painting in New York. I don’t have much to say but have a lot to paint about it.

I am almost done with a drawing destined for San Francisco, ( I think ), and discover that I very much dislike hats and love Arvo Part .

Also, to emphasize the mood of the moment – one of the lyrical pieces of Jackson Pollock, where he really is at home and not fighting the black paint, a calligraphy of sorts:

Jackson Pollock at the Moma - Abstract Expressionist New York

I come back to quantum physics by listening to Leonard Susskind of Stanford after I discovered a random fact about certain “work function“ – this explains why you get sunburn, and this is the threshold frequency in order to kick an electron out of an atom. I think it’s pretty simple to understand that low frequency light like infrared heats you up but it takes high frequency light like ultraviolet to get you skin burned.

There are a few quantum physics cliches I really liked even before understanding what they mean, like Quantum entanglement, destructive interference and the uncertainty principle. The great thing about the latter is that on the scale of people and cars it still exists, it’s just too small to be critical. I take great comfort in the fact that things that we really thought are quite obvious, like your speeding ticket, are just assumptions and approximations of certainty.

The abstract thought in physics and abstract thought in art became simultaneously apparent in the West. The Zen monks who designed these gardens in Kyoto, however, were already abstract 5 centuries before. When I sat on the wooden floors contemplating these gardens I came very close to feeling like an atom, a particle:

And here is what Michael says:

“I went to paper after rethinking Thoreau’s Economy and reading about sustainability in From Cradle to Cradle.

I decided to work smaller because we live in an era when dumb things are getting larger (televisions, SUVs, McMansions) and smart things are getting smaller (smart phones, smart cars, smart cards). The generation behind me has been described as “platform agnostic”, meaning they’re willing to watch a cinematic wonder like Lawrence of Arabia on a palm-sized screen. I also prefer the face-to-face engagement that smaller works require—that is the modern interface.

I work exclusively in black and white because I like absolute contrast, and participating in the larger, global tradition of monochromatic painting.

I acknowledge that paper is the perfect surface.

I have come to loathe the wealthy and prefer to make high quality works more cheaply that anyone might afford.

I have become bored with the “grand manner” of painting and its heroic trappings. I felt that my most recent paintings were really drawings masquerading as paintings. Lastly, I’ve always been attracted to simpler, not minimal, more direct means of making art.

I have long maintained that if the artist isn’t surprising himself, he’s most likely not surprising anyone else.”

mirena rhee - seven easy states and platonic bodies, work in progress

To my patrons and all art lovers visiting Open Studios – Thank you for the inspiration and provocation. The planing of future work will be in part based on feedback I received from you. This is going to be in a way a continuation of our conversation. Thank you for your patronage.

Roxy Paine at the Met ( last year )

Mirena Rhee - Seven easy states and platonic bodies ( Manhattan series ) - 21.5 x 26 inches, pen, ink and brown wash on paper, 2010

I would like to invite you to Pen and Ink Drawings Open studio as part of High Line Open Studios Chelsea 2010 – Oct 15-17, 526 West 26th street, suite 303, Fri 6-9 pm, Sat and Sun 12-6 pm. I will be participating with new pen and ink drawings.

Link to the online invite is here:
http://mirenarhee.com/mirena_rhee_invite.jpg

There is going to be an accompanying Exhibition Opening Party for All High Line artists, which will be held at 508 West 26th street, suite 5G, Thurs, Oct 14, 2010 from 6 to 9 p.m. The exhibit will remain open Oct 15-17, 2010, Fri, Sat and Sun from 12 to 6 p.m.

Facebook page for this event: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=124283857625985

I would be happy to see you if you can make any of the days/events. Please, feel free to forward around. There are many other artists participating in the event, all within a few blocks around West 26th street in Chelsea. If you can’t make my studio perhaps you can visit theirs: http://www.highlineopenstudios.org/artists.html

Thank you for your support!

The paintings loved being together and brought out the best in each other. Just like mass and energy, energy brings more paint and more paint bursts with energy. What an opportunity to be with art, to feel it’s power to change.

Jackson Pollock at MOMA Abstract Expressionist New York

Abstract Expressiontist New York exhibit at MOMA

If you set out in this world,
better be born seven times.
Once, in a house on fire,
once, in a freezing flood,
once, in a wild madhouse,
once, in a field of ripe wheat,
once, in an empty cloister,
and once among pigs in sty.
Six babes crying, not enough:
you yourself must be the seventh.

When you must fight to survive,
let your enemy see seven.
One, away from work on Sunday,
one, starting his work on Monday,
one, who teaches without payment,
one, who learned to swim by drowning,
one, who is the seed of a forest,
and one, whom wild forefathers protect,
but all their tricks are not enough:
you yourself must be the seventh.

If you want to find a woman,
let seven men go for her.
One, who gives heart for words,
one, who takes care of himself,
one, who claims to be a dreamer,
one, who through her skirt can feel her,
one, who knows the hooks and snaps,
one, who steps upon her scarf:
let them buzz like flies around her.
You yourself must be the seventh.

If you write and can afford it,
let seven men write your poem.
One, who builds a marble village,
one, who was born in his sleep,
one, who charts the sky and knows it,
one, whom words call by his name,
one, who perfected his soul,
one, who dissects living rats.
Two are brave and four are wise;
You yourself must be the seventh.

And if all went as was written,
you will die for seven men.
One, who is rocked and suckled,
one, who grabs a hard young breast,
one, who throws down empty dishes,
one, who helps the poor win;
one, who worked till he goes to pieces,
one, who just stares at the moon.
The world will be your tombstone:
you yourself must be the seventh.

I love the number seven plus you can find more great poems here: visit http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/590

They say in New York, you learn something new every day.

Recently I had to move some of my things across town. Once The taxi driver saw my luggage he refused to take me. With all my things on the sidewalk I had to beg. And he grumbled. I kept loading my things – and we got going… and once we reached a really bad neighborhood, the car broke and stopped. We were in the midst of a sea of cars swerving left and right around us. There was a moment of silence and something in me told me that the Driver and I were there to learn a lesson.

The taxi driver was in sheer panic. Then, amidst all the traffic, a person from the streets approached us. After a conversation I could not hear The Driver took out some dollar bills, handed them to the stranger and the stranger disappeared from sight. We knew we may never see the bills or the guy again, and waited. In a few tense moments the stranger appeared, crossed the sea of cars towards us holding a tube of car oil. The oil went in the car, the car started, we thanked the stranger and he smiled from ear to ear, his face transformed in a bliss of goodness.

Well, all this is not news in New York. The matter was that after this incident the Driver’s attitude turned 180 degrees, he became the nicest person, talked to me about doing good things to others and ultimately helped me with my luggage once we got home, made sure I was ok and safe. And I remember he told me: “In New York, you learn something new every day”. I think Driver, Stranger and I all learned a lesson that day.

pretty accurate portrait

My grandfather was a successful businessman and a self-taught painter. After 1947 his fortune was nationalized and he was declared an enemy of the state. I always remember him glued to the BBC and Voice of America. I grew up in my grandparents’ house and remember that a mustached person from the Party also always lived there. My grandfather drew and painted well into his 80’s and had a great sense of humor, sang beautifully and had a very laid back attitude for just about everything. An anecdote says that one of his aunts warned him that his apprentices are stealing… and he said:” There is something for me and something for them.”

my grandfather - Marin Rikev, drawings

He loved to draw cartoons

... and portraits.

What is in
a Picasso print,
what transpires in
a B.C. marble,
what is in
a Vatican fresco and
a Dying Slave?
What’s the Black in
a black Goya painting,
what’s eating us in
a Bosch,
where is the
De Kooning woman
going on her bicycle,
which anonymous artist
painted the thousand hands
of this Shiva?
Why does Monet
shimmer,
why is that man
with an apple
for a face,
how many birds
do you see in
an Escher,
why is
the triangle of light in
Rembrandt so mysterious?
Where is the light in
a Vermeer
coming from,
why are there
500 species of flowers in
a Botticelli,
why am I going around in
circles
trying to find out where
the wind is coming from that
is blowing
these cypresses,
and why is mouth and flesh in
a Bacon
so maddeningly
beautiful?
Why is
art
so
beautiful?

A poem written by Mirena Rhee during the wash cycle at the corner laundromat.

Hand Painted Ocean and Fruit from mirena rhee on Vimeo.

Intent sometimes takes years to grow – you have a vision in your head but it may take years for it to become optically evident. In the commercial world intent is focused on a product but in art, luckily, intent grows together with the artist realizing that intent. There is a flow to this process, an easy state.

This is a piece about a queue of vague thoughts, gestures, earlier work and some paintings at the Rubin museum of art in New York. It is also about conversations and acts of confession from other artists. Whenever I draw or work on my computer I mostly watch hands theater, it is an endless act of creation and an act of war.

Music by Al Dimeola, John Mclaughlin & Paco Delucia – Azzura.

Lee Bul cybersculpture at Lehmann Maupin. This photograph of the work looks a bit to me like Transformers playing soccer.

I am not into sports but grew up watching soccer just like other kids grow up watching cartoons. So on my way to Lehman Moupin I stop by a LES bar to take a look – USA is playing England and I have a Stella Artois while we suffer a goal.

I am on my way to see a gallery on the Lower East Side which has work by a Korean artist who comes from a “cyber architecture” background. I am interested to see the work in person and find out if it is a linear translation of a digital creation.

In art, as in games and life, controlled spontaneity is difficult to master. 201 Chrystie St., New York, NY 10002

As an artist I am in the business of manufactured reality – when I draw or paint or make 3d worlds I destroy pristine surfaces, sacrificing the blank page, the white canvass and the empty page for imaginary creations.

It was my dream to talk to Louise since she adressed a number of issues I have always struggled with, and not just struggled I would say blackly terrified. Pain, fear, frustration and suffering, power, red. So often i am overwhelmed by anxiety and fear, I am terrified of power and pain, I could not casually look at violence or watch tv and switch between real and staged sufferings with a button. I learned from Louise how to use the color red, how to “give meaning and shape to pain”.

An artist practices vulnarability and that’s part of the trade, an artist often crosses to the other side and claws into the subconscious and that is a gift. Louise once said: “I have been to Hell and back and let me tell you it was wonderful.”

Mirena Rhee, Bay to Breakers portraits, 2009. Last work with the old Canon camera - I signed up for the 2009 race and ran/walked the 12k course with my 128mm eye.

This series for me is a collective reflection on the human condition. Behind the funny hats and painted faces are the anxieties we face in the 21 century – terrorism, global disaster threats like the Swine flu, freedom to choose partners, freedom to accept other people’s choices, the environmental Health of our Spaceship Earth, globalization, multiculturalism and the extinction of identity.