Artist Highlight: Meekyung Shin

This month, we're happy to welcome artist Meekyung Shin to our online energy art gallery! Her dreamlike paintings are rooted in the Minhwa tradition (Korean folk painting), but she brings her own unique and fresh energy to it. Her art feels alive, playful, and rich with meaning. It’s a world where ancient symbols and personal stories combine in new ways, and time is not linear. 

The Living Tradition of Minhwa

Minhwa (민화) are Korean folk paintings that have brought color, meaning, and joy into everyday life for centuries. Unlike formal court art for elite spaces, Minhwa was created for the people. It was meant to be lived with, to decorate homes, celebrate milestones, and offer wishes for protection and good fortune. 

The paintings often speak through symbols such as animals, flowers, and natural elements that carry layers of meaning. They're both playful and meaningful, weaving imagination with cultural wisdom. They infuse daily spaces with energy and story.

That’s why we love adding Meekyung to our already rich roster of energy artists. She keeps her tradition alive while giving it room to breathe and evolve for modern hearts around the world.  

The Journey to Folk Art

Meekyung’s artistic journey has been shaped by various disciplines. She first studied fine arts and architecture at Hongik University, earning her BFA, MFA, and even completing doctoral coursework there. She taught as a university professor for ten years before diving fully into her own artistic practice.

But once she dove fully into Minhwa, she made quite an impact. In 2017, she won the Grand Prize at the Joseon Minhwa Museum Open Call Exhibition.She’s now recognized as one of the leading voices bringing Minhwa into contemporary spaces, helping people discover or rediscover this beautiful tradition.

Time, Dreams, and Possibility

Meekyung sees Minhwa as something bigger than technique or tradition. She shares:

"As someone trained in spatial design, I experience the world of Minhwa as a place where time and dreams coexist. It is an infinite space where anything imagined can come into being. I weave time into my own narratives, creating Minhwa as a vessel for imagination and breath."

In her paintings, past and present blur together. Her work unfolds the way a dream does, without rigid order, full of surprise and meaning. Time doesn't move in a straight line in this world. It drifts, circles back, and opens new doorways to the unknown.

"From my very first year of working with Minhwa, the realm of time and dreams has taken root deep within me…. My practice unfolds like a dream, shaping stories that exist beyond chronology. Endless imaginings of time and dream inhabit each work equally, without hierarchy. This is how I see Minhwa—and how I engage with its boundless, fantastical space: by sensing, interpreting, and sharing a world where imagination has no limits."

Keeping the Tradition Alive

In addition to making her own art, Meekyung runs a Minhwa studio where she teaches and leads educational programs. She's nurturing the next generation of artists, ensuring that Minhwa continues to grow and change while staying rooted in its cultural wisdom.

This dedication mirrors what we believe at Change Your Energy: that art connects us across time and space, that every culture is a beautiful expression of our shared human story, and that no matter who we are or where we come from, we can always find parts of ourselves in one another.

Discover Meekyung Shin's Minhwa collection here in the Change Your Energy shop.