How is human art different from nature and what is special about human art? /  by Mirena Rhee

How is human art different from nature and what is special about human art?

It is that we can conjure, we can use our imagination. Would the Chauvet cave be the same without the art? The artist drew pictures of animals that were not in the cave, what they remembered and imagined.

We can use our imaginations to draw pictures of what is not there.

We can draw pictures of what has never been there and never will be there.

Art Test /  by Mirena Rhee

The real test about art is - can it be really easily reproduced?

If it can't be reproduced easily it is art that costs a lot.

It could take someone years to figure out the correct inks and paper I use.

Salvador Dali spent years trying to figure out how Vermeer painted.

Scientists actually dissect Rembrands with x-ray.

Well here's the truth, every artist has a secret ingredient they have figured out, I know I have secret ingredients for my drawings and no one else will ever be able to do anything even close to what I do. It's just a sacred combination of ideas and execution.

Same thing with Salvador Dali. His jewels will be hard to reproduce without actually looking like Salvador Dali.

My point is, there's stars exploding in the universe. There are black holes with mysteries beyond imagination, and there's art that could never be made again.

On this Christmas Eve I imagine the atoms of my body being forged and assembled over billions of years in the hearts of stars and the big bang /  by Mirena Rhee

I imagine all the lonely particles swirling around in very hot places and then being ejected and traveling as fast as light and then meeting other particles billions of years down the road, even more swirling around and then boom a human baby. Imagine some of me could have been the moon instead of me. This entire ordeal is much more entertaining than the entirety of human history if it were ever to be recorded.

And so was every homeless person in new york. We are all one and the same thing.

2023 /  by Mirena Rhee

Drawing and painting are the jewels of my existence. I'm exalted when I feel very close physically to the pigments of yellow ochre, cadmium yellow, and mars red. They are my drugs.

Whenever I draw and paint these are the stars of my existence in a field of endless darkness. I feel physical pain being separated from the feeling of applying paint or scratching the surface of smooth paper with a dip pen, and I crave to experience it again.

I spent a month with my nose right up to the surface of a painting looking through the lenses of my glasses and magnifying glass. I stare at that surface like it's the surface of another planet that I'm just creating. I can't wait to experience that ecstasy again.