Lee Eun Hwa translates emotion into visual signs. From her 2004 debut *Emotional Esperanto* through today's SAF contributions — painting as a language beyond language.
"Emotion has its Esperanto. Across language and borders, we feel the same things and want the same things."
Artist Profile
Lee Eun Hwa holds an MA Fine Art (painting) from the University of the Arts London, an MA in Contemporary Art from Sotheby's Institute of Art London, and completed PhD coursework in art history at the University of Manchester. Since the early 2000s, she has pursued work exploring language and sign, the desires and identities of city dwellers, and human emotion and psychology, moving between Seoul, New York, and London.
She has participated in curated exhibitions at Seoul Museum of Art, MMCA, Busan Museum of Art, and Sungkok Art Museum, and joined the 2006 Gwangju Biennale and the 2025 Japan Shinwon-jeon (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum). Alongside nine solo exhibitions, she has authored multiple art books — Paintings with Stories, Traveling Northern European Museums, The Room of Paintings — carving out the distinctive territory of "museum storyteller."
The Work
Her painting translates emotion into visual sign. That topic, begun with her first solo exhibition Emotional Esperanto (2004), lives on in titles such as Struggle, Even with the Wind, Hidden Feeling. On canvases where acrylic and oil pastel layer, color and form speak before language.
In 2024, supported by Seongnam Cultural Foundation, she ran Tell Me The Story: When Our Stories Become History, combining painting, record, and video. At the 2025 Gyeongnam International Art Fair, her participatory Room of Welcome: Welcome VIP drew strong response. Her work is held by Haslla Art World and ArtBooks Inc.
SAF
Three works — Struggle, Even with the Wind, Hidden Feeling — are contributed to SAF 2026. Lee Eun Hwa joined this solidarity resonant with the structural difficulties her peers, all gathered under the name artist, face. Sale revenue becomes a mutual-aid fund for artists facing financial discrimination, returning as low-interest loans. The brush-language that has translated emotion now becomes a language of solidarity.
Discover Lee Eun Hwa's works at SAF Online.
Works by Lee Eunhwa
Related reading
If this piece helped, you may also enjoy these related articles:
- Four First-Time Collectors Share Their Stories — The moment of buying a first artwork is different for everyone. A first paycheck, a mother's birthday, a new home after divorce — four collectors who bought their first works through SAF tell their stories.
- 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.
View all works by Lee Eunhwa →
Related Reads
Artists on the Same Path
- 정미정 — Jung Mi-jung: Inner Landscapes on Canvas
- 이호철 — Lee Ho-cheol: A World Held in Fifteen Canvases
- 강석태 — The Painter Who Met the Little Prince: The World of Kang Seoktae
Collecting Guides
Seed Art Festival
Published April 8, 2026
