The Art of Elim Mak
Spirituality
plays a pivotal role in Mak's life and she addresses it in her work with
her own unique
fusion of Eastern art motif and Western art technique. Her mixed medium
paintings on paper are
mainly inspired by Asian culture and Buddhist belief, an ironic contrast
to her austere Chinese
Christian upbringing in Canada. Vibrant patterning, Buddhist iconography,
and the subject of
Asian women and beauty are among the main elements in her work. Her beautifully
rendered,
decorative patterns and shapes resonate the gem-like detail of Chinese
ornament design,
Tibetan thangkas, and Japanese woodblock prints. Her evocative flair for
the human figure stems
from her background in fashion storyboarding and comic book illustration,
and is evident in her
depiction of Buddhist deities.
She says of her work, "Painting is my meditation. I regard my paintings
as objects of devotion, like
precious jewels of enlightenment. A duality of the sensual and the sublime,
they draw the viewer
into a trance-like state of serenity, ever focusing inward."
Elim Mak is a first-generation Chinese-Canadian-American artist. She was
born in Boston in
1969 into a Protestant minister's family. Her father's ministry took the
family to numerous
Canadian cities where there were few Chinese and she was educated in various
private
Mennonite Christian schools. She received her BFA degree in Painting &
Drawing in 1992 at
Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. With her dual citizenship status,
she moved to New
York City the following year, lured by the city's culturally diverse energy.
Mak’s successful art
career now spans over a decade in fashion storyboard and comic book illustration,
graphic
design, and fine art painting.
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