MINA CHEON
HerSTORY
Mina Cheon (천민정) PhD, MFA
b. 1973 in Seoul, South Korea, lives in New York
is a global Korean new media artist, scholar, educator, arts and culture advisor, human rights advocate Mina Cheon (MFA, PhD) is a new media artist, scholar, educator, and peace-building activist best known for her “Polipop” art inspired by Pop Art and Social Realism. Her practice draws inspiration from the partition of the Korean peninsula, exemplified by her parallel body of work created under her North Korean alter ego, Kim Il Soon, in which she enlists a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, video, installation, performance, and public projects to deconstruct and reconcile the precarious history and ongoing coexistence between North and South Korea. She has exhibited internationally, and participated at the Inaugural Asia Society Triennial, NY (2020-2021) and the Busan Biennale, Busan (2018). Her work is in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Smith College Museum of Art, Seoul Museum of Art.
Cheon’s solo exhibitions include at The Korea Society, NY (2021), Ethan Cohen Gallery, NY (2014, 2017-18, 2020-2021), The Noyes Museum of Art, NJ (2018), Trunk Gallery, Seoul (2014), Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul (2012), Maryland Art Place, MD (2012), C.Grimaldis Gallery, MD (2008), Insa Art Space (2004-5), Lance Fung Gallery, NY (2002). Her solo show “Haunted Koreas” (2022) at the American University Museum in DC was accompanied with an essay by critical theorist Avital Ronell and traveled to the Asian Arts and Culture Center of Towson University in MD (2025). Cheon is represented by the Ethan Cohen Gallery in New York and has shown with Stephanie Kim Gallery and Kate Shin Gallery in New York, Simon Gallery and Trunk Gallery in Seoul, and C.Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore.
Cheon received her PhD in Philosophy of Media and Communications from the European Graduate School (EGS), European University for Interdisciplinary Studies, Switzerland; MFA in Imaging Digital Arts from UMBC: An Honors University in Maryland; MFA from the Hoffberger School of Painting, MICA; and BFA in painting from Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea. She has been a Full-time Professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) since 2004, Associate Dean and then Dean of the Undergraduate Studies (2021-2024), and now Professor Emerita since 2025.
Cheon is an Ewha Global Fellow and has been a visiting professor and lecturer at Ewha Womans University and a mentor of Art-Uni-On, a global mentorship network by Hyundai Co. and the Seoul National University. She is the author of Shamanism + Cyberspace (Atropos Press, 2009), was a contributor for ArtUS, Wolgan Misool, New York Arts Magazine, Artist Organized Art, and was Associate Editor of the Media-N journal where she contributed critical essays covering SeMA Mediacity Seoul Biennale 2016 and the Venice Biennale 2017. Photo by: Richard Cousins (film director)
b. 1973 in Seoul, South Korea, lives in New York
is a global Korean new media artist, scholar, educator, arts and culture advisor, human rights advocate Mina Cheon (MFA, PhD) is a new media artist, scholar, educator, and peace-building activist best known for her “Polipop” art inspired by Pop Art and Social Realism. Her practice draws inspiration from the partition of the Korean peninsula, exemplified by her parallel body of work created under her North Korean alter ego, Kim Il Soon, in which she enlists a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, video, installation, performance, and public projects to deconstruct and reconcile the precarious history and ongoing coexistence between North and South Korea. She has exhibited internationally, and participated at the Inaugural Asia Society Triennial, NY (2020-2021) and the Busan Biennale, Busan (2018). Her work is in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Smith College Museum of Art, Seoul Museum of Art.
Cheon’s solo exhibitions include at The Korea Society, NY (2021), Ethan Cohen Gallery, NY (2014, 2017-18, 2020-2021), The Noyes Museum of Art, NJ (2018), Trunk Gallery, Seoul (2014), Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul (2012), Maryland Art Place, MD (2012), C.Grimaldis Gallery, MD (2008), Insa Art Space (2004-5), Lance Fung Gallery, NY (2002). Her solo show “Haunted Koreas” (2022) at the American University Museum in DC was accompanied with an essay by critical theorist Avital Ronell and traveled to the Asian Arts and Culture Center of Towson University in MD (2025). Cheon is represented by the Ethan Cohen Gallery in New York and has shown with Stephanie Kim Gallery and Kate Shin Gallery in New York, Simon Gallery and Trunk Gallery in Seoul, and C.Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore.
Cheon received her PhD in Philosophy of Media and Communications from the European Graduate School (EGS), European University for Interdisciplinary Studies, Switzerland; MFA in Imaging Digital Arts from UMBC: An Honors University in Maryland; MFA from the Hoffberger School of Painting, MICA; and BFA in painting from Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea. She has been a Full-time Professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) since 2004, Associate Dean and then Dean of the Undergraduate Studies (2021-2024), and now Professor Emerita since 2025.
Cheon is an Ewha Global Fellow and has been a visiting professor and lecturer at Ewha Womans University and a mentor of Art-Uni-On, a global mentorship network by Hyundai Co. and the Seoul National University. She is the author of Shamanism + Cyberspace (Atropos Press, 2009), was a contributor for ArtUS, Wolgan Misool, New York Arts Magazine, Artist Organized Art, and was Associate Editor of the Media-N journal where she contributed critical essays covering SeMA Mediacity Seoul Biennale 2016 and the Venice Biennale 2017. Photo by: Richard Cousins (film director)
MINA CHEON
Mina Cheon's practice draws inspiration from the partition of the Korean peninsula, exemplified by her parallel body of work created under her North Korean alter ego, Kim Il Soon, in which she enlists a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, video, installation, performance, and public projects to deconstruct and reconcile the precarious history and ongoing coexistence between North and South Korea.
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