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 — including roughly contemporaneous artists at Musashino, Tokyo Geidai, and Tama Art University — who have made Tokyo's print education infrastructure their primary professional home.
Her mature work circulates through Tokyo galleries, principally Gallery MoMo (Tokyo, both Ryogoku and Projects branches), Gallery Natsuka, and Gallery Maruhi, with concurrent presence at Gallery Woong in Seoul. Her solo-exhibition titles indicate a sustained engagement with literature: 'Printing Modern Novel' (2017-2019, Tokyo galleries), 'Doppelgänger Note' (2021, Gallery Natsuka, Tokyo), '吾輩ハ猫デアル' / 'I Am a Cat' (2021, Gallery Maruhi, Tokyo, after Natsume Sōseki's 1905 novel), '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 established by the printmaker Ikeda Masuo (1934-1997) that signals strong technical competence in intaglio. In 2023 she completed a three-month residency at the Leipzig International Art Programme (LIA), Germany, extending the European study connection initiated at the UdK Berlin. She is included in the 4th PATinKyoto Print Art Triennale 2025 (April 15 – May 11), with the featured work 'Intaglio image I' (2019, copper plate print + oil-based ink + Japanese paper, 1200 x 910 mm) — a large vertical sheet that is a direct embodiment of her core technical commitment.
Group-exhibition participation has included The National Art Center Tokyo (2020 — the Sapporo International Art Festival 2020 / SAS satellite venue), the Abashiri Art Museum in Hokkaido (2019), and academic-context shows at Musashino Art University Museum and Silpakorn University in Thailand. Her cross-strait 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.