Seal Engraving in Korea

What is seal engraving?

Seal engraving is the act of engraving seal characters on a finite and limited space. According to artist Lee Joonho, it is the tabloid edition of calligraphy.

"Seal engraving requires the process of editing and simplification. It's very straightforward because it uses a knife instead of a brush. Seal engraving in Korea is simpler, more candid but quite reserved other countries." says Lee.

Lee Joonho - the artist, was first introduced to seal engraving through a calligraphy student organization while attending KyungHee University in 1993.

Here are samples of his work.

Sanyoohwa (24x18cm, 2007) depicts four seasons
through a time-based portrayal of flowers, showing
phases from blossoms to full bloom to wilted and
fallen from the stem.

I told you Koreans love Prison Break's Wentworth Miller!
Here's a seal designed with Wentworth's
name in Hangul on it! I wonder if he owns one.

If you want to purchase Lee Joonho's work, contact Hank Kim at Seoul Selection.

Phone: (02) 734-9567, E-mail: hank@seoulselection.com

The info above was extracted from the Aug 2007 issue of SEOUL magazine.