From a Broken Printer to a Head Being Born: Kim Jonghwan's Print Room

In Kim Jonghwan's studio, nothing is easily thrown away.

"I've never simply discarded things I've used once. I opened up a broken printer and found pretty good parts. A few motors and gears, metal rods, odd parts, leftover nails, leftover ballpoint pens, things that are now old…"

Those gathered parts become heads on his canvas. A whole era's junk is mobilized to make one face. He majored in printmaking at university and now runs a print studio, Panhwabang. Member of the Korea Contemporary Printmakers Association and the Hongik Printmakers Association. Once taught at Kaywon School of Art and Kaywon University of Art & Design.

Etching, Drypoint, Lithography

His three SAF works are all from the Head Study series — but the techniques differ.

• Head Study — etching, drypoint (2018)
• Head Study — Portrait of a Giant — lithography (2018)
• Head Study — With a Parting 1 — mixed media (2024)

Etching, scratching metal plate with needle and acid; lithography, using the repulsion of stone and oil; and mixed media, where object meets print. All of printmaking's techniques layered on one subject. Making "familiar, or unfamiliar shapes." The artist's words.

The Path from Picture Book to Print

For many, Kim Jonghwan was first known not as a printmaker but as a picture-book illustrator.

Banjjokie, Dokkaebi's Ssireum Feast, Hong Gildong, Hanbija, +-×÷ Magic Show, Joseon's Dream in Hanyang, Golden Dragon and Rainbow. Plenty of monthly-magazine illustrations too. Old tales, arithmetic, and the urban planning of Joseon — through his hands, they became a book children open.

In 2017, his The Difference — Daily Printmaking, It's OK Even if You're New was published as a specialty text. A book organized so those new to printmaking could learn a little each day. The attitude of teaching seeps into the title.

Right and Wrong — Three Solo Exhibitions

Solos are concise. Starting with The King's Memory at Mac Gallery Cheongdam in 2004, Transformation Episode at alternative space Loop in 2006, then Right and Wrong at Moon Fragment Gallery in 2018. Each title reads like a small manifesto.

The Era and the Studio

Head Study — a face carved into metal plate

He received the Best Prize in Printmaking at the 2005 Danwon Art Competition and the Excellence Prize in Printmaking at the Haengju Art Competition, and in 2004 the Yi Sang-uk Prize at the Korean Contemporary Print Open Call. He steadily participated in Korean Contemporary Printmakers Association exhibitions — Metaprint 2022 (Hongik University Museum of Contemporary Art), Post Print 2021 (Kim Hee-su Art Center). He also joined the Korea–China Print Exchange Exhibition (Lu Xun University, China, 2005) and the Korean Contemporary Print Exhibition in Sweden (Inplan Museum).

Participation in 60 Years of Korean Contemporary Printmaking — Making Print (Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, 2018) is the official record that he sits within a generation's print lineage. Moving between studio and school, picture book and gallery, he has built printmaking's public seat.

From Panhwabang to SAF

Kim Jonghwan contributes three Head Study works to SAF.

84.9% of Korean artists are excluded from institutional finance. Sales of works by SAF-exhibiting artists cycle into a mutual-aid fund, returning as low-interest loans to fellow artists.

Printmaking is originally a medium that can be pulled many times. An image starting at one person's fingertip crosses — through repetition — to many walls. The nature of print is close to solidarity. From one work to another life, from that life to yet another. The repetition Panhwabang has made now extends into another inscription — the fund.

Broken Things Becoming a Face

One printer part, one motor, one leftover ballpoint pen. Each was almost to be thrown away. Gathered, they make one head.

That is how Kim Jonghwan's print speaks. If you gather what would have been thrown away, an unfamiliar but clear form emerges. SAF sits in exactly that place.

More in Artist Stories

If this piece helped, the SAF Magazine has more in the same series:

• Lee Yun-yop — A "Dispatched Artist," Carving the Texture of Labor in Multi-Color Woodblock — Lee Yun-yop, master of Korean multi-color woodblock. "Dispatched artist" activist, industrial rubber matting medium, farmer/worker motifs, MMCA collection — with 5 curated picks.
• Lee Cheol-soo — From Minjung Woodblock to the Woodblock of Zen, One Texture of Korean Printmaking — Lee Cheol-soo (b. 1954), master of Korean woodblock. 30-year evolution from 1980s minjung woodblock to Zen, spirituality, and peace. Farming and woodblock practice in Jecheon — with 5 curated picks.
• Park Jae-dong — The Father of Korean Editorial Cartooning, and the World Beyond the Daily Comic — Park Jae-dong (b. 1952), the father of Korean editorial cartooning. Eight years at the Hankyoreh, Reality and Utterance collective, and a practice integrating painting, animation, and teaching — with 5 curated picks.