Biography
Dawoon Jung (born 1989, Seoul, South Korea) is a Korean printmaker who has made the bulk of her training and exhibition career in Tokyo and now maintains studios in both Tokyo and Seoul. Her practice is anchored in copper-plate intaglio — the conventional mechanical heart of European-tradition fine-art printmaking — and centres on large-format intaglio prints in oil-based ink on Japanese paper, with imagery drawn from literature and personal narrative.
Jung's professional formation took place almost entirely at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, where she completed both her BFA in Printmaking (2015) and her MFA in Printmaking (2019), with a 2017-2018 study period at the Universität der Künste Berlin in Germany. The decision to pursue an MFA in Japan rather than Korea, and to remain partially based in Tokyo afterward, places Jung within a small but distinct cohort of Korean printmakers who have made Tokyo's print-education infrastructure their primary professional home.
Her mature work circulates through Tokyo galleries — principally Gallery MoMo, Gallery Natsuka, Gallery Maruhi, and Gallery Satsu — with concurrent presence at Gallery Woong in Seoul. Her solo-exhibition titles indicate a sustained engagement with literature: 'Printing Modern Novel' (2021, Gallery Satsu, Tokyo), 'La 羅生門' / 'Rashōmon' (2020, Gallery Maruhi, Tokyo), 'Doppelgänger Note' (2021, Gallery Natsuka, Tokyo), 'Vincent Vincent Vincent!' (2021, Gallery MoMo, Tokyo), and 'PROTOTYPE' (2021, Gallery Woong, Seoul).
In 2016 Jung received the IKEDA MASUO Grand Prize at the 10th Madokapia Print Biennial, an early-career honour named for the printmaker Ikeda Masuo (1934-1997) that signals strong technical competence in intaglio. She was among the participating artists in the 4th PATinKyoto Print Art Triennale 2025 (Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art, 15 April – 11 May), showing a large intaglio print in her characteristic oil-based ink on Japanese paper.
Group-exhibition participation has included The National Art Center, Tokyo (2020), the Abashiri Art Museum in Hokkaido (2019), and Silpakorn University in Thailand (2018). Her Tokyo-Seoul positioning, combined with her central commitment to copper-plate intaglio at scale, distinguishes her practice within the contemporary East Asian print scene; the work is hosted on the artist's site downjung.com.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1989
- Nationality
- 🇰🇷South Korea
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Dawoon Jung (born 1989, Seoul, South Korea) is a Korean printmaker who has made the bulk of her training and exhibition career in Tokyo and now maintains studios in both Tokyo and Seoul. Her practice is anchored in copper-plate intaglio — the conventional mechanical heart of European-tradition fine-art printmaking — and centres on large-format intaglio prints in oil-based ink on Japanese paper, with imagery drawn from literature and personal narrative.
Dawoon Jung was active born in 1989. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Dawoon Jung's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.