Meet the Artist
Stories behind the artists and their works
Behind every artwork is a life of decisions. SAF 2026 brings together 213 Korean artists who chose to put their work into a mutual-aid campaign for fellow artists. Their interviews, studio notes, and reflections give you the context that turns a passing glance into a lasting connection with a piece.
Korean contemporary artist interviews often live behind academic prose. The SAF magazine asks simpler questions in the artists’ own words, so first-time visitors can build a real sense of who made the work — and why.
Every featured artist is a “solidarity artist”: they donated work knowing the proceeds would fund low-interest loans for peers excluded from primary banking (84.9% of Korean artists). Their stories are personal, but they also reveal the structural reality of Korean art-making.
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Stories in this category
Dungzak: The Artist Who Gave Thirty-Two Works
Dungzak contributed thirty-two works to Seed Art Festival. A guide to a painter who works without sketching, and to the light and figures that fill his canvases.
Seong Hee-won: A Hundred Hours per Image, Drawn on an iPad and Cut into a Plate
Printmaker Seong Hee-won builds images around the idea of ignition, using digital drawing as a blueprint then pushing it through printmaking and oil paint. A reading of her method through her own writing and her work at Seed Art Festival.
Lee Seung-gon: From School Spaces to the Mountains of Seoul
Lee Seung-gon, chair of the Korean Minjok Artists Association, spent his career as an art teacher and school-space planner. His nine watercolors at Seed Art Festival map the four seasons of Samgaksan and the Mongolian steppe.
Shin Gun-woo: Bringing the City Indoors, One Walk at a Time
Shin Gun-woo walks cities and brings what he sees into the canvas. Four works from his Tokyo series are at Seed Art Festival.
Sin Yeonjin: Choosing Magazines Instead of Paint
Sin Yeonjin doesn't mix paint — she selects colors that already exist inside magazines. Her four works at the Seed Art Festival are all LEGO sets in display cases.
Kim Hoseong: Two Photographs from Where the Stickers Began
Kim Hoseong studied history, then photography. The two works at SAF date from 2011, when he began pasting stickers onto his own photographs.
Yang Sun-yeol: The Faceless Ottogi, Painted in Car Lacquer
Yang Sun-yeol's Ottogi sculptures are finished in automotive lacquer, their heads left featureless. A guide to her work and six pieces at the Seed Art Festival.
Chilmoe Kim Gu: Ink on Hanji, a Divided Country, and Sixteen Years of Night Alleys
Minjung artist Chilmoe Kim Gu paints division not in oil but in ink on hanji. A guide to six works at SAF, read from their materials and surfaces.
Park Suji: Oil Painting Without Oil, and the Animals That Hide Inside It
Trained in oil painting in Tokyo, Park Suji refuses oil medium. She builds surfaces without sketching and hides animals inside them. Reading five years of change across her SAF works.
Ra Inseok: Touching the Photograph, and a Ballpoint Pen That Bends
Ra Inseok calls photography a tactile medium. In his frames a ballpoint pen bends like a bow. A close look at his three works at the Seed Art Festival.
Lee Jieun: Holding the Brush Like a Chisel — Inside the Hollowed Series
Trained in sculpture at Kookmin and in painting in Germany, Lee Jieun makes surfaces that look carved rather than painted. A close reading of two Hollowed works at SAF.
Nam Jin-hyun: A Painter Who Began After Eight Years in Prison
Nam Jin-hyun spent about eight years in prison from 1990 and began studying art only in 2008. A close reading of the eleven works he has placed in Seed Art Festival.
SIM_Moby: A Forest of Raised Dots and a Studio Called Purgatory
SIM_Moby builds surfaces out of thousands of raised colored dots. A close reading of the 2025 Gallery DOS solo show and the eight works at Seed Art Festival.
Song Kwang-yeon: The Butterfly Pulls a Thread
In Song Kwang-yeon's Butterfly's Dream, the butterfly trails a thread. The flowers are painted like embroidery. A close reading of four works at the Seed Art Festival.
Jung Seo-on: Houses Folded from Paper, Rooms Built of Graphite
Jung Seo-on paints houses folded from paper, drawn in graphite powder on Korean paper. A guide to the Daegu-based artist and her eight works at Seed Art Festival.
Hong Jin-hee: Flowers Made of Red Thread, Four Seasons in Cotton
In Hong Jin-hee’s work each filament of a flower is a real thread, not a brushstroke. A close reading of the six works she has placed in Seed Art Festival.
Sim Jeong-su: From Masks and Totems to Wind, a Sculptor Who Kept the Figure
Sim Jeong-su, a founding member of Reality and Utterance in 1980, sculpted figures of pain before turning to myth and shamanism. A guide to the 2019 Kim Se-choong Sculpture Prize laureate.
Lee Jong-koo: From Rice Sacks of Ojiri to the Pensive Bodhisattva
Lee Jong-koo painted farmers on rice sacks in his Ojiri series and now turns to the Pensive Bodhisattva. A guide to fifty years of a Minjung art painter who never left the ground.
Ahn Kyu-chul: If Art Can Be a Question, How Many Rooms Does It Take?
From art magazine reporter to sculptor to writer-artist, Ahn Kyu-chul has spent forty years turning art into a question rather than an answer. A guide to his Rooms series and his work at SAF.
Kim Jae-hong: The Skin of a Sleeping Giant
Kim Jae-hong has painted the Korean landscape as a sleeping giant's body for four decades. A guide to his work and the piece he offered to the Seed Art Festival.
Ryu Junhwa: The Artist Who Called Jongmyo a Palace of Her Own
In 1999 Ryu Junhwa staged the Abang-gung project at Jongmyo with the feminist collective Ipgim, then moved to a mountain village in Bonghwa. A guide to four decades of an artist restoring the erased narratives of women.
Doo Si-young: Forty Years on a Single Word — The Arirang Painter
In 1987 a gift book led Doo Si-young to choose Arirang as his lifelong subject. Four decades later he has painted almost nothing else. A guide to the painter of Arirang.
Hwang Jeong-gyeong: Peacocks, Flowers and Salt — Three Ways of Wishing for Safety
An artist who painted peacocks and flowers turned to salt after the 2023 nuclear wastewater news. A guide to Hwang Jeong-gyeong, who works toward the ideal of "resting in the highest good."
Son Jangseop: The Tree as Witness to History
Son Jangseop (1941–2021), a founding member of Reality and Utterance, moved from history paintings to old trees and tidal flats. A guide to his work and the two pieces at SAF.
Total 195 stories
Frequently asked questions
Q. Who are the SAF artists?
SAF 2026 brings together 110+ Korean contemporary artists across painting, print, photography, sculpture, and digital art — from emerging artists to recognized masters. All voluntarily contributed works to address financial discrimination against fellow artists.
Q. Who conducts the artist interviews?
The SAF magazine editorial team meets each artist directly. We aim to reduce the formal distance of museum catalogs and academic writing, letting the artists describe their practice and daily studio life in their own words.
Q. How can I buy work by a specific artist I read about?
Click the artist name in the interview to reach the artist page. All available works, biography, and other magazine features are gathered there — and any work can be purchased directly. SAF is artist-direct: no gallery markup.
Q. Does the artist actually receive the proceeds?
The majority of sales proceeds go directly to the artist. A portion contributes to the artist mutual-aid fund, providing low-interest loans (5% APR, 95% repayment rate) to artists facing financial discrimination. One purchase supports both an artist and the broader Korean art ecosystem.
Q. How often are new artist interviews published?
New interviews are added at a pace of 1–2 per month. Recent additions appear at the top of the magazine and category pages. RSS and newsletter subscriptions are available.
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213 artists, artworks available online.