Featured: Koryo Studio North Korean Artwork (January 2024)

Featured North Korean Artwork 1.

HEROINES & VILLAINS

In a departure from the ideology-led comic book stories of the DPRK, Nicholas Bonner and designer Oscar Venhuis set this open-ended brief to DPRK’s most famous comic book illustrator Cha Hyon Sam.

Cha graduated from the prestigious Pyongyang Fine Art Institute, and head of the drawing department at Minye Publications.

THE BRIEF: On one A4 sheet create a story based on a heroine who will save DPRK from a threat – who is this girl, what is her background, what is the threat? The artist must know his protagonist intimately. What makes her, of all people, have this brave attitude…is she trained in guns or Taekwondo or does she learn this? Is she a schoolgirl/university student/ peasant/soldier? 

Email info@koryostudio.com to purchase.

Featured North Korean Artwork 2.

THEY ARE BACK

From the North Korean comics series.

We commissioned a stripped-down acrylic version of five comics which we thought best represented this genre. The images were painted by students studying graphics. In the end, they were unable to sign their names because the pieces were taken out unofficially.

Email info@koryostudio.com to purchase.

Featured Artwork 3.

RUNNING LOW ON OXYGEN

From the ‘The Future is Bright‘ series.

The works are a collaboration between two artists, Briton Nicholas Bonner and North Korean Kim Kwang
 Nam. Having grown up under the influence of the Cold War in Britain and North Korea respectively, the two men share a nostalgia for the imagery of their childhoods and the excitement and promise of an imagined future. The Future is Bright is the result of these shared memories.

Email info@koryostudio.com to purchase.