Sin Yeonjin paints with magazine pages and hanji. Instead of paint, cut-and-pasted color and image — the ordinary wishlist as collage.
Sin Yeonjin's materials are magazine and hanji.
Magazine instead of paint. The color and image of magazine, torn and pasted on canvas, become the grammar of painting. Hanji mixes in. A place where printed image's luster meets hanji's grain on one surface.
"For me, being creative is not simply making something new, but giving new meaning and role to what already exists, so that something else emerges."
The artist's manifesto. The work of rewriting what already exists. Art grounded in rearrangement rather than creation ex nihilo.
2002, and 2025
Sin Yeonjin completed BFA and MFA in painting at Hongik University.
Her first solo was at Kwanhoon Gallery in 2002. That same year, Cosmetic Art 2002 — Colorful! Powerful! (Insa Art Center); in 2001, 4induction (Hongik University Museum of Contemporary Art) — early group-show records remain.
Then a long gap. In 2020, she returned through a selected-booth solo via a young-artist open call at United Gallery, and in 2022 her name appears again in Form 2022 (CICA Museum, Kimpo), ASYAAF (Hongik University Museum of Contemporary Art).
2023 Kiptiq series (Dada Project · Amidi Gallery) and Predictable Future (Gangdong Art Center curated exhibition), 18th Gwanghwamun International Art Festival Asia Contemporary Art Young Artists Exhibition (Sejong Museum of Art). 2024 Gangdong Youth Artists #Our Moment, Gwanak × Seocho Exchange Art Fair BnB.
In 2025, two solo exhibitions continued. Kiptiq Curated Solo at Gamil Notting Hill Lounge; Collage of Ordinary Things at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital Nanum Zone. After 23 years, the solo-exhibition rhythm has shortened again. Recovery and acceleration after a long gap.
LEGO and Wishlist
Two SAF 2026 works made in 2025.
- LEGO TECHNIC 42110 — mixed media on canvas (magazine, Korean paper), 60.6×40.9 cm
- wishlist — same material and size
The titles themselves summarize the subject. LEGO TECHNIC 42110 is an actual LEGO Technic product number. A method of placing a concrete desire of a consumer as a title. wishlist is also a list of things wanted. Lifting the consumer desire of daily life directly and moving it onto canvas.
"A magazine's images and color can take the role of paint and other art materials. And it fits the intent to recycle existing things, and the expression of the everyday and the ordinary."
Two reasons for choosing magazine as material. One: already processed images and colors that can be used as ready paint. The other: the attitude of reusing materials that would have been discarded.
Recycling and Mutual Aid
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.
Sin Yeonjin's method and SAF's structure share the same verb. Recycle. Rewrite what already exists. A read magazine crosses to canvas; one person's work crosses to another person's studio. Not to make something new, but to give new meaning and role to what is already there.
The Extraordinary in the Ordinary
LEGO TECHNIC 42110 and wishlist don't take on grand subjects. Small objects one wants; an ordinary desire pointing toward them.
Yet in the artist's hand, the ordinary becomes a little extraordinary. Magazine color becomes LEGO; LEGO becomes a landscape. The same transformation happens at SAF. The moment an ordinary work's sale becomes an extraordinary loan chance. A site where Sin Yeonjin's daily life spreads into shared daily life.
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.
SAF Magazine
Published April 20, 2026
