Artist Mimi Choi wowing the world with her optical illusions

Mimi Choi, Canadian makeup artist Show off makeup skills, haunt by the gods. Complex multi-dimensional with both makeup and body painting.

Mimi is a Vancouver-based professional makeup artist renown for her unique artistic style.  Since graduating from Blanche Macdonald Centre in 2014, her pioneering illusionary work has garnered international attention and a large following on social media (@mimles).

She immigrated to Canada with her parents in the mid 90’s where she now practices and teaches her craft.

Like her birthplace, Mimi’s inspiration stems from various sources. This includes patterns and textures from her surroundings, photoshopped digital art, and surreal paintings from artists such as Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher. In addition, Mimi Choi suffers from sleep paralysis – a condition in which her mind is conscious.

During these bouts, she experiences vivid and often frightening visions which have inspired many of her more morbid and distorted face looks. She avoids viewing the works of other makeup artists however, as she believes that doing so will stunt her creativity. Instead, Mimi prefers to use her past works as a benchmark of her progress and maturity as an artist.

Coupled with her background and previous career as an educator.

Since making a name for herself in the makeup community, Mimi’s work has explode into the pop culture scene.

Everything you see on Choi’s Instagram account is her original work, inspired by shapes, patterns, and sounds — elements that evoke emotions within her. Digital and surreal artists also inspire her, but some of her more morbid looks have come from suffering sleep paralysis.