Creating access for emerging Korean artists

Context

Early in 2026 I started the Emerging Korean Artists Project, a volunteer initiative. It supports talented emerging Korean artists who have had fewer opportunities, socially or financially, and little access to the New York art market.

The problem

Good work doesn’t sell itself, especially across an ocean. An artist in Korea can be talented and still be invisible in New York for practical reasons: no English artist statement, no website, no clear prices, no relationships with galleries or collectors, and no record of past sales for a buyer to point to.

What I’m doing

The project works on exactly those gaps first. The goals that come after are bigger and slower.

Now
- an artist website and digital portfolio
- an English artist statement
- a pricing sheet
- digital branding
- outreach to buyers, collectors and galleries
Later
- a first sales history
- gallery representation
- auctions
- international exposure
- a debut in New York

Figure 1. What the project builds now, and what it is working toward.

For now, the first goal is deliberately small: one tangible outcome for even one artist. A sale, an exhibition, a collaboration, or a piece of press.

Longer term, I’d like to build an online platform where these artists and their work can be seen in one place.

Why this

Talent and access are not distributed equally. I’ve seen that from a few sides: as a student who left home to go where I could learn, and as a tutor whose students had the ability but not a guide. Art is a place where the gap is especially easy to see.

It’s too early to say what this project has achieved, and I’d rather not pretend otherwise. The next piece gets written when there’s something real to report.