Hwang Jae-hyung, the painter known as the "miner artist" who entered Gangwon Province coal mining towns to vividly depict the realities of labor and led labor and cultural movements, died of a chronic illness on the 27th, Gana Art announced. He was 74.
Born in Boseong, South Jeollanam Province in 1952, Hwang graduated from Chung-Ang University's painting department in 1982. During his time at the university, he joined with fellow artists to form "Imsulnyeon, from 98,992," a Minjung art collective.
"Hwangji 330" (1981, collection of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), painted during his Imsulnyeon activities, captured the exhausted lives of workers through a miner's worn work clothes. The work won an award at the 1982 Joongang Art Competition, drawing attention from the art world.
That autumn, Hwang settled in Gangwon Province, working as a miner in Taebaek, Samcheok, and Jeongseon. He depicted his vivid experiences through a realist perspective, earning the nickname "miner painter." His 1980s works strongly reflected Minjung art's engaged, socially conscious character. In the 1990s, he shifted toward connecting humans and nature through landscapes of declining mining towns and Gangwon Province.
After severe conjunctivitis forced him to stop mining, he remained in Gangwon Province and continued his labor and cultural activism. From 2010, he expanded his themes from coal town figures to humanity, temporality, and historicity, using materials including human hair and graphite.
He received the inaugural Park Soo-keun Art Award in 2017. In 2021, he held a major retrospective exhibition "Hoecheon" at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul.
He is survived by his wife Mo Jin-myung, one son, and one daughter. The funeral hall is Room 31 at Asan Medical Center in Seoul. The funeral procession will depart at 7:40 a.m. on March 1.
