b. 1992 VANCOUVER ISLAND, BC

Robyn Jin is a multidisciplinary artist currently residing as a guest on Lekwungen Territory working with clay and mixed media on canvas.

Introduced to art making at a very young age by her mother, but self-taught in her current practice, Robyn has been exploring the intersectionality of Zen Buddhism and abstraction. Her art-making asks viewers to transcend dualistic ideology and observe the ways nature can mirror the self.

Robyn’s technique and inspiration draw from diasporic Asian American artists, Zen-influenced Abstract Expressionists, and her Hal-abeoji (Grandfather). Moving to Canada in January 1968, Robyn’s Hal-abeoji built a new life for his family in Victoria by means of his forestry career with the BC Government. His boundless sharing of flora/fauna identification, binders of pressed wildflowers, foraging practices, and Korean Buddhism teachings have fostered a deep sense of identity in Robyn since childhood.

Exploring the physicality of ancient trees, Robyn’s works on canvas celebrate the hallmarks of action painters through gesture and movement. They are vistas scattered through tree boughs into our own inner landscapes. While her natural form ceramics are rooted in the deep need for groundedness, organic shape, and natural texture in the home.

“We must have a beginner's mind, free from possessing anything, a mind that knows everything is in flowing change. Nothing exists but momentarily in its present form and color. One thing flows into another and cannot be grasped.

Before the rain stops we hear a bird.

Even under the heavy snow we see snowdrops and some new growth.

In the East I saw rhubarb already.

In Japan in the spring we eat cucumbers.”

― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice