The Alchemy of Being Seen

How artist Binnie Keum transforms meditation, reflections on impermanence, and vulnerability into raw, unfiltered expressions of the divine feminine. Binnie Keum describes her paintings as expressions of the divine feminine, a presence she accesses through deep meditation, visualization, and contemplation.

She begins by asking herself a simple yet profound question: Who am I in this moment?

Then she waits.

With patience, the layers of identity begin to fall away, and the divine feminine slowly emerges, eventually taking on a life of her own. What follows is less an act of creation than one of channeling. Her studio becomes a space of alchemy, where joy and grief, tenderness and rage, beauty and discomfort reveal themselves before being transmuted into paint.

The result isn't always beautiful in the conventional sense. It's not meant to be.

"I don't want to just paint pretty sunsets and make art that's appealing to the eye," she says. "I want to make people feel something."

Nature, particularly its endless cycles of birth, death, and renewal, is one of Binnie's greatest teachers. She recalls walking her dog one morning through a grassy field dotted with tiny button mushrooms pushing through the earth. They seemed to appear overnight—delicate, whimsical, and full of life. But when she returned along the same path just an hour later, they had already begun to wilt, collapsing back into the earth as quickly as they had arrived.

Instead of sadness, she felt reassured by their fleeting appearance. She knew that, given the right conditions, they would emerge again.

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To Binnie, this is life: a continuous process of releasing, shedding, and surrendering old versions of ourselves so that something new can take root. Nothing is truly permanent, and yet nothing is ever truly lost.

She pulls out her phone and shows me a drawing that seems to embody this very process.

A young woman curls into the fetal position, roots winding from her limbs as tears stream down her face. My eyes settle on a single oversized teardrop balanced on the tip of her nose, suspended for just a moment before its inevitable fall.

I recognize the feeling.

I've been here before.

That quiet moment of recognition is precisely what Binnie hopes to evoke.

"These are reflections of my experience," she says. "They're an invitation for people to relate—and maybe even release."

She describes her work as part of an ongoing practice of "inner teen healing." Laughing, she explains that she's graduated from tending to her inner child and has turned her attention to the teenager within—the one longing to be seen, accepted, and understood.

"Something happens when we're truly seen," she says. "Art is meant to be seen."

Perhaps that's the quiet gift of Binnie's work. In witnessing her vulnerability on the canvas, we're gently invited to recognize our own.

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BONUS ROUND: Five Questions with Binnie Keum

Mudra Love: What is something completely ordinary that is special to you?

Binnie Bunn: Cute, whimsical things—little stuffies, stickers, and anything a little silly. I don't think we should ever lose our humor, especially with our little ones.

Mudra Love: Where do you look when you need a fresh perspective?

Binnie Bunn: I don't usually go looking for it. I wait until something lands. Meditation helps create the space for that.

Mudra Love: When was the last time your intuition was right?

Binnie Bunn: Connecting with The Storyteller's Collective. It perfectly aligned with the vision I'd been holding for a creative space where artists could express themselves. It felt like finding something I had been trying to create on my own.

Mudra Love: What were you born to create?

Binnie Bunn: Dreamscapes. New realities. A safe space where people feel seen. I want to be raw enough in my own expression that others feel safe enough to be themselves.

Mudra Love: What are you noticing more as you get older?

Binnie Bunn: The need to give my inner teen a voice. She still longs to express herself, and I've realized how important it is to let her be seen.