His first print, in 1996, was a neighbouring farmer's face. Lee Yunyeop began by carving factory floor matting with a knife, and calls himself a dispatched artist — cutting blocks at Daechuri, Yongsan and the Hope Bus. Nine works at SAF 2026.
Lee Yunyeop's first print was a neighbour's face.
〈Choi of Sandraemi〉, 1996 — a farmer who lived near his house at the time. The block was not wood but the rubber matting laid on factory floors, cut with a carving knife. After that single print, printmaking became his medium.
Thick Lines, White Ground
Lee Yunyeop was born in 1968 and graduated from the Department of Western Painting at Suwon University in 1997.
He trained as a painter, but what he has held onto is the block. Farmers, workers, the plain objects around him — cut with wit. Thick lines on white ground. The blunt warmth particular to woodcut sits right there on the surface.
For him the medium is not only a way of picturing. Cutting wood and handling tools moves the body. Woodcut therefore becomes a way of building recognition among people who understand labour — or of drawing out an understanding of the value of labour itself.
The Dispatched Artist
Lee Yunyeop calls himself a "dispatched artist" (파견미술가).
The phrase has a place of origin. Daechuri, Pyeongtaek, 2004 — a village disappearing to make way for a relocated US military base. There he drew portraits of the residents. In an interview with the civic group PSPD, he said that after Daechuri "the shape of the struggles changed a great deal, and people from the cultural field began showing up at the sites," giving rise to the artists who came to be called dispatched.
The sites that followed run on: Yongsan, Kiryung Electronics, the Hope Bus of 2012. "There are people here," from the Yongsan disaster site; "Layoffs are murder," hung at Kim Jin-suk's crane sit-in at Hanjin Heavy Industries — those sentences passed through his hands.
Suwon to Seoul, to Dongtan, to Daechuri, to Anseong. Wherever he moved, there was a site.
In 2012 he received the Gu Bon-ju Art Prize, named after the sculptor who died young.
Blocks in the Museum
The prints made at protest sites also entered museums.
The 20th-anniversary special exhibition of the Gwangju Biennale at Gwangju Museum of Art (2015); Between Layers at MMCA Gwacheon (2017); Square: Art and Society at MMCA (2019); Print, Print, Print at MMCA (2020). In 2024 he held the solo exhibition Even If It Takes a While at the Dongducheon Ecological Peace Art Museum Deokkum, and in 2025 Severed Sentences, Open Square at the Democracy Movement Memorial Hall.
His work is held by MMCA, the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, the Sakima Art Museum and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, among others. He has also published I Am a Farmer and Even If It Takes a While.
The Arithmetic of a Colour Woodcut
Several of the SAF entries carry a note: "from a colour woodcut edition of 60," "from an edition of 48."
It means one impression among many pulled from the same block. 〈Grandmother Weeding the Bean Field 2〉 is one of 60; 〈Good News〉 one of 48. The fact that woodcut was made from the start to reach many hands is right there in the notation — not far from how prints were shared at the sites.
A Hand That Holds
The nine works at SAF 2026 span 2009 to 2025.
From 〈Grandmother Weeding the Bean Field 2〉 (2009) through 〈Red Spring Plum〉 (2018), 〈Happy Days 2020〉 (2020) and 〈Something Wrong?〉 (2022), to 〈Good News〉, 〈Bukhansan 2025〉, 〈Sturdy Persimmon Tree〉 and 〈I Hold Myself〉 in 2025. An old woman weeding, plum blossoms, a persimmon tree and a mountain, all in one place.
〈I Hold Myself〉 turns its title elsewhere. A hand that has long cut the sites outside has turned toward itself.
What a Block Leaves
Lee Yunyeop entered nine works in SAF 2026.
84.9% of Korean artists are shut out of institutional finance. Works offered by the artists of SAF are sold, and the proceeds become a mutual-aid fund that reaches fellow artists facing financial discrimination as low-interest loans.
For an artist who has spent years cutting blocks alongside workers at strike sites, putting work into a fund for fellow artists is not a different kind of act.
Lee Yunyeop's Works
Related reading
If this piece helped, you may also enjoy these related articles:
See all of Lee Yunyeop's entries →
Related Magazine
Buying Guides
Seed Art Festival
