Shell Gatherer, Sinan-gun, South Korea. Painting

Roger Shepherd is a New Zealander based in Korea. He works full-time as an individual freelancer, specializing in Korean Mountain Culture from North & South Korea. His main mediums are photography and photo-art book publishing, but is now branching into painting as his new medium of expression. “Covid-19 suddenly provided me with a hole to fill. So I decided to use the spare time to fulfil a promise to my high school art teacher that I would one day draw again.” Roger is the first person to have explored the Baekdu-daegan (a 1400km mountain spine of the Korean peninsula) in North Korea over several visits and the first foreigner to have walked and documented the Baekdu-daegan in South Korea. He has held several photo exhibitions throughout South Korea, as well as in Pyongyang, Kyoto and New Zealand. His exhibitions and photo art books of the Baekdu-daegan symbolize Korea as one mountain and one people. “I am a supporter of self-determination for the Korean people. Through arts, I aim to create a paradigm for the peaceful coexistence of North and South Korea. I seek commonalities rather than differences." Roger also runs a hiking company called Hike Korea, which has helped him discover most corners of the Korean peninsula. For the past ten years, he has been guiding foreign visitors to South Korea on their mountain hikes here, including a backpacking adventure in North Korea. “These paintings are my first pieces. I decided to start with the Baekdu-daegan mountains of North Korea as they are my normal photo-subject material. I know them. Plus, no one has ever painted some of these rare unvisited peaks before. One day in the future when all Koreans are free to travel over their land, they will want to go north and south and see these peaks and places in real life. I hope that is in my lifetime. As my vision and skill for painting (hopefully) increases, I am not sure in which direction my paintings on Korea will go, but I suspect they will leave the hills and go into the town centres and start to provoke there.” 로저 셰퍼드는 남한과 북한의 산(山) 문화를 글과 이미지에 담는 화가요 사진가이자 저술가로서, 여러 번의 방문을 통해 북한 지역의 백두대간을 탐사한 최초의 인물이며 산행을 통해 백두대간을 사진과 저서와 미술작품들로 기록한 최초의 외국인이다. 그는 평양, 쿄토, 뉴질랜드를 포함, 코리아의 전역에서 남북한에 걸친 백두대간의 산들을 하나의 산, 하나의 민족으로 상징하여 보여주는 사진전을 여러 차례 열었다. 저는 한민족의 민족자결 원칙을 지지하며, 미술작품과 행동주의적 활동을 통해 남한과 북한의 평화공존을 위한 하나의 패러다임을 창조해내는 작업을 하고 있습니다. 저는 산과 미술과 문화를 한 무대 위에 올림으로써 거주하는 지역과는 상관없이 맥맥이 흐르고 있는 한민족의 동질성을 부각시키고자 합니다.