Seongmin Ahn focuses on the beauty of durability from her own intimate narratives in finding tension and balance between East and Western cultural values and norms. Using peony flowers and significant symbols, which are rooted in traditional Korean Minhwa–folk painting, she experiments and expands the boundaries of the characteristics of traditional painting styles and her own resilience and capacity.
Ahn places a strong emphasis on open perspectives and balance where she can contemplate both her own daily issues and more fundamental social and philosophical problems. The artist strives to address issues such as cultural dislocation, domestic strife, and gun violence, while constantly bearing in mind the relationship between past and present, both collective and individual. In her Coalesced Series Ahn displays the relationship between Yin and Yang, the feminine and the masculine, by merging and ultimately transforming peonies and mountains.
Seongmin Ahn received her B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Asian traditional painting from Seoul National University in Seoul Korea and then received her second M.F.A from Mount Royal, Maryland Institute College of Art. With practical experience and a deep understanding of tradition, her work takes Asian traditional painting as starting point and transforms it into something experimental with her own interpretation bridging tradition and contemporary, and East and West.
Ahn held numerous exhibitions, nationally and internationally, including solo shows at Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts (Wilmington, DE), Queens College Art Center (Flushing, NY), Wong Center, and Stony Brook University (Long Island). She also participated in and contributed to big projects such as Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens (Wang Center, Stony Brook University), Garden (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea), and Hanji Project: Hanji Metamorphoses (curated by Yu-Yeon Kim, numerous location in Chelsea).
