Artistic Mission Statement

Artistic Mission Statement

Personal art history

Myungja Anna Koh first encountered painting when she was a little girl. When she plays hide and seek with her friends, she accidentally ends up in an atelier run by a local artist. There she discovered Alfred Dürer's watercolor painting, “The rabbit”. She felt the delicate fur and vivid vitality of the rabbit in a single painting. From then on, she decided to become an artist like Dürer. In her childhood, she discovered that a piece of paper had the power to transport people to another dimension. And she thought that an artist is someone who creates doors on canvas and invites people into new spaces.

“Art makes us realize that the reality we live in is not everything and that there is another dimension beyond this. Artists are wizards who create doors in our lives and transport people to another dimension.” By Myungja Anna Koh


Media

Myungja Anna Koh's artistic mediums are poetry, painting, storytelling, and performance. She wants to express invisible energy in visible objects. That's why she's always trying new mediums as artistic explorers. Above all, she believes that art serves to grow communities, and connect and unite our experiences. In this regard, she is very interested in artistic activities that everyone creates together. She also wants to dedicate herself to revitalizing the arts in the community through education and nurturing “Everyday artists” through various projects and activities.


Artistic Mission Statement:

“I strongly believe in the importance of Art in building a thriving community. I aspire to create a society where Art is highly valued and nurtured, where people can come together and grow through Art.

Winslow Homer, an American landscape painter and illustrator, said, “Look at nature, work independently, and solve your own problems.” Myungja Anna Koh believes that this is the attitude and philosophy of an artist to life. She believes that nature is the best teacher for artists and she also gets inspiration from Mother Nature. She is also convinced that as an artist, working independently with a professional mindset and solving problems that arise on one's own is a true responsibility in an artist's life. In this sense, she is living as an independent artist, running her own website and company, exhibiting, selling paintings, teaching, publishing, etc. Additionally, as a local painter, she finds it meaningful to carry out artistic activities and related projects with the community and neighbors around her. Above all, as an artist of Korean origins, she values her work as a way to naturally infuse her Korean emotions and culture into her own work and share it with her community as cultural content. She is also as an immigrant artist and wants to create effective art education programs for immigrant children.

She said, “Through art education, I hope to foster children's creativity, critical thinking, and self-expression in others and promote the value and importance of the arts in our society.”


Signature pieces:

       Myungja Anna Koh, In my dream, 2023, acrylic on paper, 23 x 16 inches.

She believes that painting is similar to nature, which changes from moment to moment but has eternal continuity, she has been drawing her paintings for many years, trying to understand the message nature gives to humans through her paintings, and has actually experienced healing and transformation through this. Whenever possible, she wants as many people to experience the beauty and healing power of art and to fill the world with beautiful works.


"The painting is like a dream. A painting is a world that I create, can stop, and can change. Like a dream, I want to capture the energy that the unconscious creates. My unconscious mind creates the motives, colors, and moods. At the end of that unconsciousness, I seemed to reach the dream I wanted to achieve. It is about discovering the true beauty of things."