Elgin Park Secondary grad’s work featured in digital exhibit

Elgin Park Secondary graduate Min Kim is one of only 50 high school artists featured in the 2022 AP Art & Design Digital Exhibit.

A graduate of Elgin Park Secondary is one of just 50 high school artists selected from more than 62,000 portfolios to be featured in the 2022 AP Art & Design Digital Exhibit.

Min Kim, who is in her first year at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, was chosen to be featured after she submitted her portfolio showcasing her work from pre-AP Art 11 and AP Art 12 at Elgin Park. The courses encouraged Kim and her classmates to each follow one main theme for their art and experiment with different mediums to theoretically, artistically and visually explain broader concepts.

“The main theme of my portfolio is delving deeper into the inner world, the inner unconscious mind of the human brain,” said Kim. “I enjoy psychology and philosophy, so I took that theme and researched different psychological concepts such as psychoanalytic theory and Sigmund Freud’s ego, id and super-ego. I really loved the concept and I used that to create my artwork.”

Inner Child by Min Kim

Kim said she looked within for inspiration, citing daydreams as just one of her muses and influences behind her art. She describes the three pieces featured in the exhibit – Inner Child, Lost and Found, and The Ego and the Id – as abstract and surreal, in that they are open to interpretation and aren’t made up of particularly recognizable shapes.

“The Ego and the Id is related to the psychology of your unconscious mind, Lost and Found is about memories that we collect and store deep in our minds,” she said. “Inner Child is about how we have this inner self that’s buried deep inside, that we’ve covered up because of external conflicts we face all the time. We try to make ourselves seem like an adult, more capable, but there’s always our spirit that’s deep inside that remains the same and that’s the inner child.”

While Kim has been passionate about art for as long as she can remember, she said she started taking it seriously in Grade 7, beginning a shift in artistic styles from drawing graphic novel and anime characters to exploring other genres by trying new things and taking risks.

The Ego and the Id by Min Kim“I’ve learned through making this portfolio about using a variety of materials, different art periods from history, different styles, and through that, I’ve come to try something new that I’ve never imagined myself making,” she said. “I like to call it ‘dancing with uncertainty’ or ‘dancing with fear.’ Fear is something that we don’t want to face, but by facing it, we always learn something new.”

Following graduation, Kim enrolled at Emily Carr with an entrance scholarship to explore more mediums for her artwork. She hopes to use her art to tell stories and narratives – through animations, comics, illustrations and paintings – and further explore and share her interest in psychology with others.

“There are endless paths you can take with art, and I want to learn as much as I can,” she said. “Even though art is my main thing, I love psychology and philosophy, and that information can be told not only through words but through art. It can pick up some subtle emotions that words cannot say, and I’m hoping I can be an artist who can articulate through visual works in the future.”