By Kayla Lee

In 1978, at the age of 25, Arok Jung Gui-ja joined the Jeong Soo-hee's Folk Painting Institute, located in the Seoul National University Alumni Hall building near Gwanghwamun, after watching a TV program about folk paintings. This choice led to her eventual ascension to the status of Seoul City's Intangible Cultural Heritage Folk Painting Artisan. It was a chance encounter with folk painting that turned out to be fateful.

In 1980, she met Kim Man-hee, the first and only master folk painter of Korea and the Seoul City Intangible Cultural Property No. 18, as her second teacher and studied folk painting theory and practice for a long time, and after her teacher passed away (2018), she was designated as the Seoul City Intangible Cultural Property No. 18 folk painting artisan on March 24, 2022, through an examination.

In the meantime, with a sense of mission that our unique traditional folk paintings should be known worldwide, she has developed "experience kit products based on folk paintings" and focused on promoting them widely in Korea and abroad.

She has produced many disciples to promote and develop our unique traditional folk paintings. Recently, the movement of society that recognizes its own subjectivity and national sentiment is increasing radically to establish folk paintings that are suitable for modern times based on the origin of traditional folk paintings, and she foresaw that Korean folk paintings will be loved by the world and will stand tall as Korean traditional art that can represent Korean art.

Although she is based on reproducing the transmission of tradition as it was handed down to her by her teacher, Kim Man-hee, she emphasizes to future generations that they must pass on the tradition, but that they should focus on incorporating their own ideas and philosophies into their works as much as possible, taking into account the flexibility to follow the changes of the times. 

Artist Jung said, “In addition, we should all know that Korean folk tales are full of the spirit of the Korean people, and we are determined to do our best to correct the concerns about the difficulty of understanding the creative folk painting of some young writers who are currently falling into a period of confusion through our folk tales, and to make them the spiritual teachers and guides of the future.”

Since then, she has been invited to participate in folk painting exhibitions in Vienna, Austria, Australia, Japan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Shanghai, China, New York, USA, Italy, Russia, Belgium, Vietnam, and other countries, and has received favorable reviews. 

She is currently conducting basic and advanced training at the Donhwamun Education Center for Intangible Cultural Properties in Seoul, and has held folk painting demonstrations and experiences for the public at Namsan Hanok Village and Cheong Wa Dae Sarangchae, and holds annual folk painting demonstrations and experiences for the public and foreigners interested in folk painting at festival events in Seoul. Currently, she is actively teaching folk painting to traditionalists at her private folk painting laboratory in Jongno-gu, Seoul.

She is the author of Discovering the Artisan, the Folk Painting of the Nobleman, Jung Seung-hee, “the Life-imitating People Painting (Dahongchima).”

Major Achievements
1978~2023 Traditional Folk Painting Solo Exhibition "Putting Style into Old Paintings" (Total: 21 times)
2010. 6.18. ~ 6.23 Shanghai International Art Festival at Shanghai Museum of Oriental Art
2012 Art New York-Korea Art Festival HUTCHINSON Gallery
2012. 6.30. Blue House Sarangchae Demonstration, Experience, Merit Citation Presidential Citation: No. 2012-482 (Arok Folk Painting Laboratory)
2013. 4.17 Art Italy-Korea Art Festival,
2016. 5.18. ~ 6.17 Invited solo exhibition at the Korean Cultural Center, Vietnam, Traditional Korean folk painting and love room stories
2021. 4.20. ~ 5.4 Gallery Chosun, Special Exhibition on Folk Paintings 
2021. 5.21. ~ 6.13 100 luxury Korean crafts with Italy  
2023. 10.13.~14 Seoul Intangible Culture Festival, My Intangible Heritage Explorer Demonstration and Experience Event, Seoul Craft Museum
2023. 12.27.~ Jury chairman of the 11th Daegal Culture Festival Contemporary Folk Painting Competition Caption