From Food Engineering Student to Geurimmadang Min: The Everyday of Lee Incheol

Lee Incheol graduated in food engineering before opening his first solo at Grimmadang Min in 1989. Hand-colored woodblocks of "Mr. Kim" and "Newlywed Mr. Lee."

Lee Incheol, Mr. Kim (金씨), 1991, hand-colored woodblock, 32×50 cm

Lee Incheol majored in food engineering.

Born in Busan in 1955, he graduated from Pusan National Fisheries University in food engineering in 1983. A young man who did not major in art at university opened his first solo exhibition at Seoul's Grimmadang Min in 1989. Its title: Our Everyday-I. That year, also an invitational show at Jeonju's Ondara Museum of Art. The artist's career began from a defining space of Korean minjung art.

Grimmadang Min, and 30 Years After

Lee Incheol's solo titles walk the grain of Korean social history.

1989 Our Everyday-I, Grimmadang Min, Seoul
1992 Our Everyday-II, Grimmadang Min, Seoul / Ondara Museum, Jeonju / Gallery Nouveau, Busan
2005 Good days! Peaceful Everyday, Deokwon Gallery, Seoul
2006 Good days!!, Busan Minjoo Park invitational
2010 Old story, Park Jinhwa Museum invitational, Incheon
2018 In the Paradise, Namu Art Gallery invitational, Seoul
2021 Drifting the Earth, Busan Minjoo Park invitational
2023 On the Street, Namu Art Gallery invitational, Seoul
2025 Horoism (From the Invisible to the Visible), Artverse in Paris

Work that began at Grimmadang Min and Ondara Museum, arriving at Busan Minjoo Park invitationals (2006, 2021) and Paris's Artverse (2025). If Our Everyday held the faces of 1980s–90s ordinary Koreans, Horoism rewrites that everyday in the international grammar.

150 Group Shows, and 2025

His record lists about 150 group shows. 2025 alone records:

Overturning the Plate, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art
Nonsense Like Moonshadow on a Lake, Arte Forest
REGENERATION — 5.18 45th Anniversary Media Art Special Exhibition, Alternative Art Space Ipo
Peace Cultural Festival — Dongducheon Peace Flag Exhibition, protest-site parking lot, former STD control facility, Soyosan, Dongducheon
Korean Peninsula Peace Conference of World Artists — Art Revolution, Gallery Hangil, Heyri
Jeongseon International Book-Love Bookplate Exhibition
Chronicle of Light, Democracy Memorial Hall

Democracy Memorial Hall; the 5.18 45th Media Art Special; the protest parking lot of the former STD facility at Dongducheon. Exhibition-venue names reveal Lee Incheol's concerns clearly. A 70-year-old senior artist still standing in the middle of Korean contemporary history.

Mr. Kim and Mr. Lee, Two Hand-Colored Woodblocks

Lee Incheol, Newlywed Mr. Lee (李씨), 1992, hand-colored woodblock, 40×52 cm

Newlywed Mr. Lee — a 1992 newlywed scene

Two SAF 2026 works are from 1991 and 1992.

Mr. Kim (金씨) — 1991, hand-colored woodblock, 32×50 cm
Newlywed Mr. Lee (李씨) — 1992, hand-colored woodblock, 40×52 cm

The titles themselves are Korea's two most common surnames — Kim and Lee. 金 and 李. Neither proper names nor full names; only surnames close to anonymity. Yet this points to anyone's face in Korea. Minjung art's tradition of calling on the ordinary person — Lee Incheol was already doing it in woodblock 35 years ago.

Both are woodblock with added color. Print's repeatability and painting's individuality meet on one surface. Works from the Our Everyday-II period (1992) meet 2026 audiences again through SAF. Thirty-five years between — itself a record.

A Senior's Solidarity, an Orbit Continuing

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.

Lee Incheol's career began at Grimmadang Min from the start. A person who opened his own artist record at a space fellow artists built together, now participates again at a site of mutual aid at age 70. Evidence that 40 years of orbit have not been broken. If Our Everyday called min of 40 years ago, 2026's SAF calls min of today.

How Mr. Kim and Mr. Lee Continue

In Korea, Kim and Lee still remain the most common.

And their everyday still continues. When Lee Incheol's 1991 woodblock hangs on a SAF 2026 wall, Kim and Lee's our everyday continues without gap. As long as he overturns the plate and continues the chronicle of light, the painter of everyday continues to paint everyday.