Stories behind the artists and their works
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A painter who spent his entire life in a Japanese-influenced style exploded in the final years before his seventieth birthday. Park Saenggwang's last eight years — covering shamans, dancheong, and talismans in obangsaek — stand as one of the most dramatic transformations in Korean modern art. Two of his drawings appear in SAF 2026.
Since first encountering Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince, Kang Seoktae has been asking the same question for over three decades: what do we lose when we become adults? His works held by the MMCA Art Bank and the French Cultural Center in Korea appear in SAF 2026 in a showing of fifteen pieces.
Born in Cheongju in 1928 and gone in 1990, Min Byungsan was known as the 'Street Philosopher' and 'Korea's Diogenes.' His lifelong craft of Min Byungsan-style calligraphy and prose writings now stand, thirty-six years after his death, on the frontlines of solidarity through SAF.
In 1960, a young man enrolled at Hongik University's art school and left after one semester. His reason was simple: tuition money could buy more paint. That young man was Joo Jaehwan.
Printmaker Oh Yun died at forty-one in 1986, but the folk dances he carved into wood never stopped moving. Eighteen posthumous woodblock prints in SAF 2026 mark a poignant return: four decades after his death, his art now fuels a financial safety net for fellow artists.
The 127 artists of SAF 2026 did not show up for themselves. They came to stand for peers pushed out of the financial system, offering 354 works as an act of solidarity. This is the story of how art protects art.
Self-taught printmaker Lee Cheolsu moved quietly from the frontlines of Minjung art toward a world of Zen spirituality. Farming and carving in equal measure today, his woodblock knife still cuts to the heart of the age's questions. The ten works he submitted to SAF 2026 offer a cross-section of that long journey.
Of the 127 artists in SAF 2026, Park Jaedong contributed the most — 25 works ranging from watercolor originals to art prints. His choice raises a simple question: what kind of conviction does it take to give that much?
