Born in Seoul in 1954, the self-taught printmaker Lee Cheolsu stepped quietly from the vanguard of Minjung art into the spirituality of Zen. His wooden blades still carve the era's questions. The ten works submitted to SAF 2026 are facets of that long journey.

From Resistance to Zen — The Woodblock World of Lee Cheolsu

Carving wood is subtraction. You must remove what exists for form to appear. First-time viewers of Lee Cheolsu's prints are usually struck first by their simplicity, then overwhelmed by the weight carried within them. Not a single line, not a single space is ordinary.

A World Built Through Self-Study

Lee Cheolsu was born in Seoul in 1954. As a boy he was a bookish literary soul. He resolved to become a painter only after his military service. He did not attend art school. He studied painting on his own. The word "self-taught" is often romanticized, but in reality it means finding the road alone. No signposts, no one to teach you.

In 1981, he held his first solo exhibition in Seoul. As his essay collection Flowers Blooming in the Shade, published that same year, shows, he was never a person who only painted. He wrote, and he carved his thoughts into wood. He continued solo exhibitions across the country, and in 1989 opened shows in major cities in Germany and Switzerland. European museum audiences paused before Korean woodblocks. His reach later extended to Seattle in the US.

Carving the Era in the Language of the People

In the 1980s, Lee Cheolsu's prints were the language of resistance. Under the name Minjung printmaking, the suppressed voices of the era took form on his blocks. Simple, sharp lines, direct messages. His prints of that period were pasted on walls and circulated in the streets. Before debates about whether art is agitation or not could begin, the works were already in people's hands.

But Lee Cheolsu did not remain under the label of Minjung printmaker. That was a language the era handed him — not the world he wanted to reach.

Lee Cheolsu, Dokdo — Sea of the Heart, 2013, Woodblock on hanji, 76×47cm

The Blade Turning Toward Zen

At some point, his prints began to change. In place of anger, stillness settled. In place of slogans, questions were carved. Works like Ego and Ego, is this face really your face? read like Zen koans from their titles. Not words flung at someone else, but blades turned toward the self.

Many found the shift puzzling. But to Lee Cheolsu it must have felt like a natural move. Resistance, in the end, is anger toward "what should not be." Zen is the power of looking at "what is, as it is." The way one carves the wood is the same; only the direction of the gaze has changed.

"Never letting go of the era's questions, he keeps farming and printmaking with a particular concern for peace and environmental issues."

Lee Cheolsu, Ego, 2021, Woodblock on hanji, 50×42cm

The Voice of More Than Twenty Books

Lee Cheolsu is a printmaker who is also a prose writer. More than twenty books testify to this. The Song of Dry Grass (Hakgojae), On the Night the Pear Blossoms Bloomed White (Munhakdongne), the Leaf Letter series from Samin Press. His writing is as brief and resolute as his prints. The way he whittles away unnecessary words echoes the way he handles woodblocks.

In 2011, to mark his 30th anniversary, he published A Mind Carved in Wood. Gathering thirty years of work into one book. That alone is a testimony.

Ten Works at SAF 2026

Lee Cheolsu submitted ten works to SAF 2026. Among them, the most striking is Mumunkwan (50 Prints in Series). Price: ₩50,000,000. One of the highest-priced works in this exhibition. Mumunkwan (無門關) is a collection of 48 Zen koans compiled by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Huikai. The gateless gate. Questions without answers. Lee Cheolsu carved them into 50 prints.

The other works also show the breadth of his world.

Sacred (96×64cm, woodblock on hanji, 2019) — ₩3,000,000
Yongbieocheonga (130×60cm, woodblock on hanji, 2024) — ₩4,000,000
Water Flows and Flows to the Sea (98×42cm, woodblock on hanji, 2016) — ₩2,500,000
Pumpkin Elder (60×50cm, woodblock on hanji, 2019) — ₩1,500,000
Ipchun (Spring Begins), Dokdo — Sea of the Heart, Heart Jar — smaller works around the ₩1,200,000 range

Woodblock on hanji. The materials are consistent. The deepest questions carved with the most Korean materials.

Lee Cheolsu, Ipchun, 2018, Woodblock on hanji, 50×42cm

Between Farming and Printmaking

Today, Lee Cheolsu farms. Tilling the soil, sowing, harvesting — and carving wood, inking, pressing hanji. Two forms of labor fill his day.

Peace and environmental issues are not slogans for him. His everyday life as a farmer is itself the way he lives those questions. When a person who tends the land speaks about the environment, the words carry weight.

That Lee Cheolsu chose to join SAF 2026 is also a statement on the reality of fellow artists. A structure in which creators cannot live on creation alone. He knows better than anyone that this is a long-standing problem of the Korean art world. Over forty years of work is his witness.

Carving wood is subtraction. But Lee Cheolsu's prints fill, in the place subtracted, something else. Stillness, a question, and an old sense of solidarity.

Solidarity in the Context

84.9% of Korean artists are excluded from institutional finance. Sales of works by SAF-exhibiting artists build a mutual-aid fund that returns as low-interest loans to fellow artists facing financial discrimination.