Biography
Delaney MeSun Shin is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the intersections of cultural identity, folklore, ecology, and place. Drawing on her Korean-American heritage and experiences in the American landscape, she brings together stories, imagery, and symbols from diverse cultural traditions to explore how narratives shift across generations, environments, and personal experience.
Working across drawing, painting, cut paper, artist books, and installation, Delaney is particularly interested in the relationship between storytelling and the natural world. Flora, fauna, landscapes, and figures drawn from folklore and mythology recur throughout her practice, often creating imagined spaces where cultural histories and contemporary environments overlap. Her material investigations frequently center on paper, which she cuts, layers, binds, and transforms to create both two- and three-dimensional works.
Shin earned her Master of Fine Arts in Two-Dimensional Studies with a concentration in painting from Bowling Green State University and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Stout, where she specialized in drawing and minored in art history. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina, where she teaches drawing and design.
Statement
Back when tigers smoked the pipe” is a phrase my grandparents are just as familiar with as I am with “Once upon a time.” These beginnings invite us into worlds where animals speak, landscapes hold memory, and the boundary between the real and imagined becomes less certain. Stories passed down through generations carry fragments of heritage, place, values, and belief. My work draws from this tradition of storytelling while considering how stories change when they are retold through our own experiences and environments.
Growing up between Korean and American cultures, I am interested in the spaces where histories, identities, and places overlap. My work brings together folklore and mythology with the landscapes and ecosystems I encounter, creating imagined worlds where stories can exist outside of their original time and place. Korean folktales intertwine with myths and stories connected to the American landscape, particularly those surrounding animals, transformation, and the trickster. The trickster, often appearing as an animal or shapeshifter, moves between worlds, challenges expectations, and transforms through each retelling. In my work, these familiar figures inhabit recognizable landscapes and exist alongside native flora and fauna, creating new narratives that connect cultural memory, personal experience, and place.
Within these compositions, I often place myself among recognizable animals and plant life, becoming a character within the story rather than simply its narrator. Animals drawn from mythology and folklore mingle with species belonging to particular landscapes, allowing the familiar and mythical to exist together. By inserting myself into these imagined environments, I explore what it means to inherit, encounter, and reinterpret stories that come from different cultures and places.
Paper remains central to this process. I am drawn to its familiarity as well as its ability to transform through cutting, folding, layering, weaving, and binding. With hand-cut paper, I construct intricate compositions in which individual shapes and layers come together to create a larger narrative. The physical act of cutting slows down the process of storytelling, allowing each plant, animal, and figure to become intentionally placed within the world I am building.
My work creates imagined ecosystems where personal experience, folklore, and the natural world intersect. Rather than illustrating a single existing tale, I borrow fragments from stories, landscapes, and lived experiences to create new mythologies of my own. These works ask how stories travel with us, how they change when set in new landscapes, and how we might find pieces of ourselves in the stories we choose to retell.
Curriculum Vitae- Available upon request
Interested in Purchasing Artwork/Prints or working together?
I would love to talk more. Please send all inquiries to delaney.shin017@gmail.com
