A Period of Quiet Reflection

October’s calendar page is a little startling at first glance: a young woman, seemingly with prickly cactus growing out of her. If I had written this story on the first of the month, I might have said it is an apt depiction of what some people go through with the onset of spring: hay fever.

Then yesterday, I might have said it was an accurate expression of many people’s feelings on hearing of yet another horrifying and heartbreaking shooting in America.

Today I have looked up the artist, Choi Mi-Kyung, who paints under the pseudonym Ensee, and I can find out little about this Korean graphic designer and illustrator who hides her face on her own website. She works digitally, and all her images display a similar, delicate aesthetic and subdued subject matter: ethereal girls (and occasionally boys) partially hidden behind foliage, birds, domestic scenes.

The pictures, especially viewed en masse, make one pause, and open a window into quiet reflection and tranquillity – a welcoming sense of stillness in today’s chaotic and sometimes disturbing world. It may even soothe the soul.