Hee Min Son explores the question of 'what is life' in biology and translates the process into art. Her sculptures express her interest in the concept of life, its properties and forms, composition and evolution.

 

Beginning with modern marine microscopic animals and working backwards to the primordial oceanic paleontology, the artist captures the sculptural moment at the boundary between fact and speculation, restoration and creation. Working from fictionalized specimens, the creature sculptures hover between scientific knowledge and the aesthetic process of art, addressing long-standing questions surrounding the category of life.

 

"Invisible Creatures" aims to demonstrate the sensation of mixing the real and the false in space and time. Sculptural representations of the extant crustacean crab larvae and marine microscopic animals Zoeaand Megalopa, as well as members of the ancient Ediacaran biota from around 600 million years ago, are placed in tanks with real aquatic plants and shrimp. The fake Cambrian fauna sculpture was placed alongside realistic moss growing through soil, wood, and stone.

 

Exploring the origins of life and imagining its evolutionary forms to come, life eventually manifests itself in the physicality and form of living things, revealing that it has existed in a variety of ways over time, from the tiniest to the most primitive. Microorganisms that are too small to be seen by human standards, archaic organisms that have become extinct through time, and the coexistence of these organisms to continue the dimension of life is the future, the past, and the present.

 

Heemin Son graduated from Korea National University of Arts MFA(2021) and BFA (2017) in the Department of Fine art. The question of 'what is life?' is explored in biology and physics, and the process is solved through art. Floating between art, life, and science, she has expressed interest in the concept of living things, materiality and form, ecological change, composition and evolution in various ways through her sculptures. Major solo exhibitions include Chitin (Gallery175, Seoul, 2021), Cheung (Corner Gallery, Seoul, 2017) and major group exhibitions include non-boundary shell (Gallery Gblue, Seoul, 2023), How to live with Muwi (Seogyo Art Experiment Center, Seoul, 2022), Test Flight: Day and Day Accident (Art Space Cargo, Incheon, 2022).​​