Professor BG Muhn teaches painting at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and is a visual artist actively showing his artwork in the United States and Korea. Professor Muhn earned his BA degree in journalism at So-gang University in Seoul and later immigrated to the United States where he studied art, receiving his BFA at the California College of the Arts in Oakland and his MFA at the University of Maryland in College Park.
Professor BG Muhn is an authority on North Korean art. He has made many research trips to DPRK to visit museums and interview artists and has been giving lectures on North Korean art at numerous academic venues including Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Harvard universities. He is working on a book on North Korean contemporary art with a focus on Chosonhwa, traditional ink wash painting on rice paper. His eight-year endeavor on the research of Chosonhwa culminated in his recently published book, Pyongyang Art: The Enigmatic World of Chosonhwa (2018, Seoul Selection, 300 pages). Professor Muhn was also chosen as curator for the North Korean art exhibition, North Korean Art: Paradoxical Realism at the 2018 Gwangju Biennale in Korea.
Professor Muhn has achieved substantial and noteworthy professional recognition through solo art exhibitions in venues such as Stux Gallery in Chelsea in New York City, Ilmin Museum of Art in Seoul and the American University Museum in Washington, DC. Through his professional endeavors Professor Muhn has been awarded numerous times for his artistic merits including the Maryland State Arts Council’s Individual Artist Award and the 1st place award in the Bethesda Painting Awards Competition.
His artwork has been collected in numerous museums and galleries including the National Museum of Modern Art in Korea. Most recently, one of his major paintings was purchased by the prestigious Seoul City Museum for its permanent collection.
He also has received acclaim in reviews and interviews in The New York Times, Art in America and CNN among others. Professor Muhn’s life as an artist was featured in a one-hour documentary film by KBS.