New York City /  by Mirena Rhee

New York City

Most beautiful things just can't be bought. And the most magnificent things in life just can’t be bought with money. If you make a pile of all the de beers in the world they're going to be less beautiful than a flower and if you put together the riches of the entire planet you're not going to be able to make a summer sky in New York City, where the clouds are golden the shadows are purple and all the gray buildings are showered in light.

New York City is full of so much joy and it's an endless theater of magnificent human beings, for some reason we're so so different in terms of cultures that we've come here from but we all like to play in the park.

I see all these people playing games exercising their you know great bodies showing off dancing chatting walking their dogs running having a picnic on blankets.

Can't imagine myself living in suburbia, behind the screen door, and with endless kitchen cabinets, I can't give up the best the most interesting theater in the world which is New York City itself.

I realized New York city's back because the train was packed.

In New York City you never know what's going to happen and anything can happen at any moment.

Happy Memorial Day - I made a small drawing to celebrate human exploration on Mars. It is called A Hand In The Sand. 8 x 11 in - pen and ink on board, 2021 /  by Mirena Rhee

Drawing is one of the oldest ways of expression for humankind, from cave paintings to scripts on clay tablets to hieroglyphs to the ideas of Leonardo and the drawings of skyscrapers.

Human beings have expressed ideas through drawings since the dawn of time.

In the world of ideas, everything is possible and this drawing is an expression of that possibility.

The hand is set in soil of tiny squiggles and they're even a few rocks there.

I use a technique of drawing that is one of the oldest used - it goes back to the reed pens of 400 BC.

The different types of crosshatching express natural versus man-made, or to be more precise, machine-assisted.

Entropy vs order.

A Hand In The Sand.

8 x 11 in - pen and ink on board, 2021

The Best Artist steps in and I step out, for a sec /  by Mirena Rhee

One of the reasons I didn't, for now, want to continue with the installations in Central Park is because the best artist that ever was which is 

Nature had to step in with Spring.

It was time for Nature to step in and unfold its incredibly beautiful art which is blooms and flowers and trees so I wanted to defer to that. We are so advanced technologically, we can’t make a leaf or a twig from scratch.

haha

I am also working on my book projects, especially a new book project I have been working on in my mind for a long time which is Minimalism, my 3D School project as well as essays, paintings, and many other things. Going back to my 3D School project is a lot of fun, it will be a way for me to stay with 3D, which I love, computers, and Video Games.

I've been wondering why so many bright adults engage in computer science coding programming and related disciplines. And I figured it out. 

Computer Science is a game, 

a brilliant game with a partner that never sleeps and never forgets. No wonder so many kids engage in video games, no they don't really play versus human opponents, they engage with the machine who serves tasteful bits at regular intervals never sleeps never forgets it's never busy with other stuff but to serve.

Back to Minimalism, another topic I have been living with but not writing much about and I recently felt that 

21 century needs a good guide to Minimalism

and I am going to write it.

I live a minimal lifestyle and minimalist philosophy has come to inform my artwork has become part of the way I live and become a part of my art.

Over the years minimalism has become a way of life for me and minimalist philosophy has become a part of my life and also informs my art. I won't mind installations and my performance work to have the minimal possible carbon footprints and therefore remain fleeting and ephemeral.

The reason I committed to minimalism and left my six-figure job is probably not what you think. The main reason is that

the temptation to not do art is great,

historically very few wealthy people have done great art that has remained. I believe that making great art is about the mentality of a kamikaze, a singular way of operating. This has absolutely nothing to do with poverty or wealth or whether the work sells well. It has something to do with what I discovered about myself, and the fact that I operate better on the verges and thin ledges.

Having a good time is really compelling and I have to say I enjoy it too much. I will always have to fight my tendency to get complacent when I do well. 

Well, while practicing minimalism I discovered that it works on many levels.

A minimalist way of life ensures that you think about the right things.

 When I had a lot of possessions I used to worry about them all the time. But the questions is - do I want to worry about pots and pans and couches when the world is so incredibly interesting, there are so many fascinating things happening, there's this enormous wealth of past present, and future information, I don't want to go into the nothing without learning about all of it. 

My yearning for freedom and knowledge is just greater than anything I can buy. 

I feel like Diogenes without a barrel so it makes for an interesting life.

Minimalism has many practical applications and moral principles. Minimalism also applies to social media but also the very basics of life - sustenance. 

Over the years I have developed an attitude towards food, I have been a vegetarian all of my adult life and later my attitude towards animals in general changed but this is another topic. I have decided that I will not consume meat of any kind, I will eat primarily raw vegetables, fruits, and small amounts of fish, and will eat organic. I will also limit my meals to once a day. 

Once I built this framework it took a lot out of worrying about sustenance. It served many purposes - it eliminated kitchens, pots, and pans out of my life, and the many rituals connected to this dreadful timesink. Now I only have to worry about a meal once a day.

I don't want to think about or worry about food beyond 5 minutes. 

What am I gonna eat?- same -done. 

Food is a persistent worry and time-consuming activity anyway, I don’t want to burden it with frills and meaningless rituals. Once I figured it out once and for all - it freed my brain to worry about other things. Wait a minute, this also eliminated any need for servants or kitchen help down the road.

When I started living a minimalist lifestyle I did it out of necessity in a kind of wanting-feeling to be free of all the useless possessions I have accumulated, a very natural desire. I wasn't sure if I was going to get a couch again. All my actions were rooted in reason. There's not much space in New York City so I better have not much stuff. I've left a six-figure salary behind so it makes sense to operate on a smaller scale.

When I wrote my A Journey Into Zen book I didn't originally intend to include the possessions part.

All my convictions grew naturally observing the world studying how I work in the world.

I was very sure though for one thing that I will never get a television again. I believe the cost of television watching is so high that even if they pay me a livable wage I won't do it.

Incidentally, the realization that the smaller screens have come to replace the television screen gradually materialized.

I recently decided to think very critically of my social media use, and social media in general. I discovered one thing about it. 

Social media apps have become much smarter than me.

I found myself thinking of stuff I have no business or interest in like trends and hashtags. What? I found my thoughts intruded upon by ads, especially underwear and bras, and all kinds of nets for my brain that these apps have placed around me. They are 

Brain Traps!

You know I have no business thinking of my next bra or underwear when I am looking at Michelangelo or the next exhibition I wanted to go to. 

In fact, I can make this statement very confidently - 

ads don’t work for the betterment of humankind but to its detriment.

Ads need to die, I certainly don’t feel like helping them live. I don’t monetize my YouTube channel and cling to Facebook only for now thinking of how to replace the social media aspect of my public life with something meaningful.

I also recently read some advertisement piece about celebrity barn style house and wanted to say this

if your house is a mansion it is not sustainable

You can’t convince me you need more than two rooms in your house - one for sleeping and one for work. Okay, two rooms each person. For exercise - get outside, get some air or join the gym. Or get a garden, I think gardens are okay. Actually gardens are great.

Reflections - Hieroglyphs at The Point, 2021 /  by Mirena Rhee

Installation with 36 Giant Hands in Central Park, 2021

In response to the Lockdowns, I created a series of installations in Central Park, this is the third in the series.

Inspired by the Trees and Colors of Central Park.

This installation - Reflections - Hieroglyphs at The Point - is, of course, random on the very surface, the hands are randomly placed but a result of a long time of observation and working on ideas about the space in Central Park and especially the forms, the shapes of the trees, the colors of Earth and bark.

The Old Masters colors of the park ambushed with the sharp burst of Color in Acrylic Paint. It’s a bit of chemical burst, but as natural as the wavelengths of light are natural.

Just like randomness in the shapes of the trees and branches is only on the surface but follows an inner logic of growth and reach up to ultraviolet light, so is my installation a natural progression of many years of study as well as spontaneous work with the environment to create an ephemeral work, a temporary pigment, a visual language for one afternoon.

I call it ephemeral sign language. Hieroglyphs are made out of painted hands. Squiggles, and Graffiti. Reflected in the water.

They say Light doesn’t travel but ripples,

and doubles the World.

It makes us all, humans and trees,

tremble a little.

I love trees, the trees in Central park are really beautiful colors of the bark. My grandpa who was in forestry used to tell me to hug a tree when I was sick to get better. /  by Mirena Rhee

I love trees, the trees in Central park are really beautiful colors of the bark. My grandpa who was in forestry used to tell me to hug a tree when I was sick to get better. I made tree hugs installations, and plan to hand paint some tree cozies.

The Trees of Central Park, 2021

Tree Hugs Installations, 2021

Mirena Rhee - The Green New Deal /  by Mirena Rhee

Man-made natural environments have had a great impact on my life. The first half of my artistic career I spent as a commercial video game artist which involved mainly working on the computer creating artificial 3D worlds.

After a visit to the Zen Gardens in Kyoto, Japan, I gained an insight into my own human condition and a year afterward I became a minimalist living a minimalist lifestyle and decided to commit to very tactile practice like drawing, performance, installation, and human-centered art.

In 2015 I wrote a book titled Japanese Gardens: A Journey Into Zen where I developed a visual journey through the Zen Gardens in Kyoto through my own photographs and poems.

During the lockdowns in Manhattan in 2020, I turned to the plants and trees of Central Park for sanity and solace. There was a rooftop bar across to my studio in the middle of the glass skyscrapers which had completely overgrown and turned into a green urban garden oasis.

In response to the Lockdowns, our loneliness and isolation in the big city, in the Summer of 2020 and Spring of 2021, I created a series of installations in Central Park for the joy and entertainment of everyone.

In 2020 I created a series called Strawberry Fields Forever, Summer Playfields, Hands Crop Circle, and others as a response to the spaces and landscapes of Central Park.

In 2021 I continued working in Central Park and created a new series called Remember Summer where I worked with the muted colors of early spring in the park, with the trees and the larger scale landscapes. I created a series called Tree Hugs and also Reflections where I also engaged with large and small bodies of water.

My favorite story From the Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell: Don't build Yourself a Palace. A Castle in The Sky. /  by Mirena Rhee

From the Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell:

There is a wonderful story in one of the Upanishads about the god Indra. Now, it happened at this time that a great monster had enclosed all the waters of the earth, so there was a terrible drought, and the world was in a very bad condition. It took Indra quite a while to realize that he had a box of thunderbolts and that all he had to do was drop a thunderbolt on the monster and blow him up. When he did that, the waters flowed, and the world was refreshed, and Indra said, "What a great boy am I."

So, thinking, "What a great boy am I," Indra goes up to the cosmic mountain, which is the central mountain of the world, and decides to build a palace worthy of such as he. The main carpenter of the gods goes to work on it, and in very quick order he gets the palace into pretty good condition.

But every time Indra comes to inspect it, he has bigger ideas about how splendid and grandiose the palace should be. Finally, the carpenter says, "My god, we are both immortal, and there is no end to his desires. I am caught for eternity." So he decides to go to Brahma, the creator god, and complain.

Brahma sits on a lotus, the symbol of divine energy and divine grace. The lotus grows from the navel of Vishnu, who is the sleeping god, whose dream is the universe. So the carpenter comes to the edge of the great lotus pond of the universe and tells his story to Brahma. Brahma says, "You go home. I will fix this up." Brahma gets off his lotus and kneels down to address sleeping Vishnu. Vishnu just makes a gesture and says something like, "Listen, fly, something is going to happen.”

Next morning, at the gate of the palace that is being built, there appears a beautiful blue-black boy with a lot of children around him, just admiring his beauty. The porter at the gate of the new palace goes running to Indra, and Indra says, "Well, bring in the boy.” The boy is brought in and Indra, the king god, sitting on his throne, says, “Young man, welcome. And what brings you to my palace?”

”Well," says the boy with a voice like thunder rolling on the horizon. “I have been told that you are building such a palace as no Indra before you ever built."

And Indra says, "Indras before me, young man-what are you talking about!"

The boy says, "Indras before you. I have seen them come and go, come and go. Just think, Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic Ocean, and the lotus of the universe grows from his navel. On the lotus sits Brahma, the creator. Brahma opens his eyes, and a world comes into being, governed by an Indra. Brahma closes his eyes, and a world goes out of being. The life of a Brahma is four hundred and thirty thousand years. When he dies, the lotus goes back, and another lotus is formed, and another Brahma. Then think of the galaxies beyond galaxies in infinite space, each a lotus, with a Brahma sitting on it, opening his eyes, closing his eyes. And Indras? There may be wise men in your court who would volunteer to count the drops of water in the oceans of the world or the grains of sand on the beaches, but no one would count those Brahmin, let alone those Indras."

While the boy is talking, an army of ants parades across the floor. The boy laughs when he sees them, and Indra's hair stands on end, and he says to the boy, "Why do you laugh?"

The boy answers, "Don't ask unless you are willing to be hurt." Indra says, "I ask. Teach." (That, by the way, is a good Oriental idea: you don't teach until you are asked. You don't force your mission down people's throats.)

And so the boy points to the ants and says, "Former Indras all. Through many lifetimes they rise from the lowest conditions to highest illumination And then they drop their thunderbolt on a monster, and they think, 'What a good boy am I.' And down they go again.

While the boy is talking, a crotchety old yogi comes into the palace with a banana leaf parasol. He is naked except for a loincloth, and on his chest is a little disk of hair, and half the hairs in the middle have all dropped out. The boy greets him and asks him just what Indra was about to ask. "Old man, what is your name? Where do you come from? Where is your family? Where is your house? And what is the meaning of this curious constellation of hair on your chest!"

"Well," says the old fella, "my name is Hairy. I don't have a house. Life is too short for that. I just have this parasol. I don't have a family. I just meditate on Vishnu's feet, and think of eternity, and how passing time is. You know, every time an Indra dies, a world disappears - these things just flash by like that. Every time an Indra dies, one hair drops out of this circle on my chest. Half the hairs are gone now. Pretty soon they will all be gone. Life is short. Why build a house?"

Then the two disappear. The boy was Vishnu, the Lord Protector, and the old yogi was Shiva, the creator and destroyer of the world, who had just come for the instruction of Indra, who is simply a god of history but thinks he is the whole show.

Indra is sitting there on the throne, and he is completely disillusioned, completely shot. He calls the carpenter and says, "I'm quitting the building of this palace. You are dismissed." So the carpenter got his intention. He is dismissed from the job, and there is no more home building going on. Indra decides to go out and be a yogi and just meditate on the lotus feet of Vishnu.

……….

(Eventually) Indra gives up his idea of going out and becoming a yogi and finds that, in life, he can represent the eternal as a symbol, you might say, of the Brahma.

So each of us is, in a way, the Indra of his own life. You can make a choice, either to throw it all off and go into the forest to meditate, or to stay in the world, both in the life of your job, which is the kingly job of politics and achievement, and in the love life…

The Road to Minimalism /  by Mirena Rhee

Some time ago I went to Japan and had near nirvana on the tatami floor in the middle of July in Arashyama, in Kyoto, looking out to one of the famous Zen gardens. I wrote a book of poems and photographs of my experience. Since then I left my 6 figure job, moved to New York city and took on a systematic journey of getting rid of my possessions.

Minimalism allowed me to focus on making artwork that I can share with many people and literally the entire city but which requires much time and energy. I made an interesting observation that a lot of my wealthy friends in the Bay Area had no contact with many people because they used the walls of their homes and their estates as the barrier to entry for strangers.

Moving and getting rid of my stuff, my art became very people centric, and I became very people centric as my possessions no longer were central to my human experience. I make installations in central park which can be enjoyed by both homeless people and wealthy uptown people, and we can discourse together literally on the sidewalk.

The art is resource and brain power intensive and includes planning and logistics. I also draw, paint and make animations. I do not have any time for domestics like cooking, cleaning and running a home. All my possessions are currently tools of my trade and art/materials, of course clothes;), haha well, not gonna run around in a loincloth, own of course a few simple and favorite things like Tchotchke, utensils and books. I made a project/ a visual list which reflected on all the mass of things I donated and sold, including my car ( which used to be my favorite possession ) and furniture. This has made moving and traveling easy, and there's a lot of room in my consciousness to simply indulge in thinking and daydreaming about subjects and projects, which I enjoy.

The Third Edition of my Book – 102 Lessons in Art, Life and Video Games is now available on Amazon /  by Mirena Rhee

Why 102? – the book is not 101, and there are infinite numbers between 101 and 102…

The third edition of my book which started long time ago in a galaxy far far away. I created it more as a comic book rather than a reflowable document that you have to read, a fun thing with a few serious pages in between. A tale of several covers, and several titles.

Mirena Rhee was a Star Wars artist, 15 year veteran of the Video Games industry, and created video game art for blockbuster franchises like Iron Man Shrek, and X-Men. She was a well-regarded video game artist in the Silicon Valley and at Lucasfilm when she decided to leave her six-figure salary and job in paradise to commit to creating art for the betterment of humankind full-time.

In this motivational, sometimes irreverent and funny, and tongue-in-cheek collection Mirena Rhee addresses diverse subjects like how to dream, how to get a job in video games, best practices in creating art for video games, notes on productivity, and sharpening one’s artistic creativity. What is a video game, what does a video game artist do, how to create great games, how to think of the big picture. The second half of the book is filled with personal insights on living a life as an artist and her philosophy for a human-centered artistic practice.

Click below for high-resolution image of the cover:

102 Lessons in Art, Life and Video Games

This book began a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. This is the third and greatly improved edition which I will keep improving and polishing with things whenever I can.

It is also epic,  with over 100 pictures and chapters and lessons you will never forget.

I did not have enough cat pictures to illustrate the book properly so I am using instead screenshots of actual Video Game levels I worked on, glitches, photographs I took, boring documents I wrote and some frivolously Photoshopped memes which you can luckily skip –just swipe left! I never use images or levels I haven’t worked on myself.

Despite the lack of enough cat pictures, the book contains useful things that you can immediately use in your workflow – Tips and Tricks and Best Practices for how to develop great Video Games, and how to get the most of your creative drive. Hard core stuff like Asset Spec Sheet templates. The Video Game Playbook gives you play-by-play on what you need to do to get your game done, as well as ideas on what to do before, during and after making your game.

Some chapters I devoted to my personal understanding of Video Games and Digital Entertainment, my experiences as a Video Game Artist and how I tackled hard stuff.

The later chapters are very personal, some are lessons from my Star Wars afterlife as an artist and creator of many things, including photography, drawings, paintings, installations, animations and performance art. Some chapters towards the end contain my very own special productivity hacks which may surprise you. Don’t throw your Kindle!

I developed this book as a comic book because the pictures are as important as the words. What is amazing about digital books is that you can always make them better – their printing press is very light – just a button and the efforts of the Author.

If the universe is indeed a simulation it is probably the best video game ever. I am sure aliens fall off their chairs giggling whenever one of us falls through the world. There’s nothing you can do about it.

But there’s something you can do to play it the best you can, and I think being an artist, a creator, is the most fun way to do it. Just make sure not to fall through the cracks. Remember that The Game of Life is the best and most important video game you will ever play.

One of the best things that happened in my life was working on Star Wars. One of the greatest things that happened in my life was leaving Star Wars and finding my own Force.

Why I do art and what it means to me. /  by Mirena Rhee

Why I do art and what it means to me.

Art is the greatest invention of humankind, there's art created in caves 30,000 years ago that still fascinates us.

When I get up in the morning I think about the art I'm going to make, the art I have made or art from other artists, known and unknown, Titans or craftsmen from 200 or 2000 years ago.

I create non-commercial art and public art, meaning I do not charge tickets, I do not ask for tips, and do not participate in vanity shows for pay per view, or pay for visitors or likes on social media.

Money to me is not important because in the history of humankind very few purely monetary enterprises have contributed significantly to humankind, historically money have supported art but it was the work the hands and minds of artists and thinkers throughout the centuries that created human culture.

I wanted to tell you this one little story, imagine a friend gives you a gift that you really like, and he says this is for you from me and you say oh this is amazing I'm so honored I love it and it's beautiful thank you for your gift. And then your friend says sure you're welcome it's going to be $200. Would you feel the same way?

This is why whenever I create I first think of it as the art being a gift to humankind, and then when I create a drawing or a painting or whatever other work that appeals to people and they want to purchase then I would gladly sell it.

I don't remember an instance where people haven't liked my drawings or painting.

I employ pretty specific techniques for my drawings and paintings because I want them to have the kind of quality that could still hold up after 200 or 500 years and the ideas embedded I want to be still relevant to any human looking at them many years after I'm gone.

And this is the reason I do not create art that is only relevant to political or social purposes of the time, the only social and political purpose in my mind is the advancement of humankind where each human being contributes their full talent to the betterment of humankind.

They're a lot of people who are talented with money and I respect and appreciate that.

They're a lot of people who are talented with words or stories and I respect and appreciate that.

I feel an inner need to create and an inner drive to create certain things that have been on my mind. I usually work on many ideas in my mind while I walk travel or do other tasks.

I frequently work on my art without actually touching it, I constantly think write or contemplate past current or future projects and develop them in my head before they head out to the street or the canvas.

I think of improbable impossible or absolutely outrageous things which gradually in my head become more reachable so it is possible that through gradual improvements even an impossible work of art could be made.

I sometimes think of what could be made on the Moon or Mars and what possible robotic instruments could help with such works of art. Would it be a simple drawing in the sand or spider webs drawn between Moons or Planets.

I do not discard any thought as ridiculous on the contrary I think especially ridiculous thoughts are really worth it of contemplation.

So what is it that I wanted to say with this long long letter - I wanted to say that writing and thinking of all these ideas and projects is as valid activity as physically creating and manipulating them and setting them in an environment.

This is why I often write in my diary I make sketches I put notes on my phone and my computer about past present or future work.

Often little seemingly unobtrusive actions create the web of support for future work, and then all the threads eventually coalesce into the material expression of what once was just a thought.

The Artist with Reflections /  by Mirena Rhee

Mirena Rhee, the artist who created Giant Hands series of installations and Reflections installation in Central Park with her colorful and visionary art.

Mirena Rhee with her installation Reflections in Central Park

Photo credit by Christine Lazzara @justachristine

The trees make hieroglyphs in the sky with their branches. Reflections - Hieroglyphs at The Point /  by Mirena Rhee

The trees make hieroglyphs in the sky with their branches Reflections - Hieroglyphs at The Point

Reflections - Hieroglyphs at The PointInstallation with 36 Giant Hands in Central Park, 2021A series of Installations in Central Park Created over the Easter Weekend as a culmination of a series of installation around the park called Remember Summer…

Reflections - Hieroglyphs at The Point

Installation with 36 Giant Hands in Central Park, 2021

A series of Installations in Central Park Created over the Easter Weekend as a culmination of a series of installation around the park called Remember Summer with 36 Hand Painted Giant Hands.

This installation - Reflections - Hieroglyphs at The Point - is of course random on the very surface, the hands are randomly placed but a result of a long time of observation and working on ideas about the space in Central Park and especially the forms, the shapes of the trees, the colors of Earth and bark.

The Old Masters colors of the park ambushed with the sharp burst of Color in Acrylic Paint. It’s a bit chemical burst, but as natural as the wavelengths of light are natural.


Just like randomness in the shapes of the trees and branches is only on the surface but follows an inner logic of growth and reach up to ultraviolet light, so is my installation a natural progression of many years of study as well as spontaneous work with the environment to create an ephemeral work, a temporary pigment, a visual language for one afternoon. I call it an ephemeral sign language.

Hieroglyphs made out of painted hands.

Squiggles, and Graffiti. Reflected in the water.

They say Light
doesn’t travel
but ripples,
and doubles the World.
It makes us all,
humans and trees,
tremble a little.

Reflections, An installation I created for Easter Sunday in the Rambles area of Central Park made out of 36 hand-painted Giant Hands each measuring over 12 ft, and Red Cloth. /  by Mirena Rhee

Reflections, an installation I created for Easter Sunday in the Rambles area of Central Park made out of 36 hand-painted Giant Hands each measuring over 12 ft, and Red Cloth.

The Installation was a culmination of a series of Installations around the park created in response to the Old Masters Painting colors of the Park in early Spring, the color scheme and the Red cloth are homage to Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

Hundreds of people came to see it and it was a success.

The Installation was not endorsed by Central Park but I hope to work with permission in the future.