Oh Seung-min (오승민; born 1974) is a South Korean illustrator. She received the Second Prize at the NOMA Concours for Children's Picture Book Illustrations with Hide and Seek. Ugly Baby Duck was selected for the Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava (BIB) in 2007. Oh was also chosen as an illustrator representing the Korean Pavilion at the Bologna Children's Book Fair with The Song of Aggabi in 2009. Her best-known works other than the above include Myung-Hee's Picture Book, Today is Tonkatsu and Curried Rice, I am An Jung-Geun, and The Red God.

Life 
Oh Seung-min was born in the South Korean city of Yeongam, South Jeolla Province, on January 31, 1974. Her family moved to Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, when she was six, where she spent her childhood. She majored in oriental painting in the Department of Painting at Sejong University. She discovered the world of picture books when, one day, she visited a friend who was expecting, and was captivated by the storytelling and artistry of John Burningham and Lisbeth Zwerger, whose books the friend had purchased for her baby. Picture books taught her that what we feel, experience, and imagine in our childhood continue to serve as our roots even when we grow up. She therefore resolved to become a picture book author in order to craft stories that reclaim such small and fragile worlds lost to us. Hide and Seek resulted from a six-month picture book course at the Hankyoreh Illustration School in 2002. Oh has been active as a children's book illustrator ever since Hide and Seek was published in 2004. She lives in Paju and crafts stories and picture books.

Career 
Oh Seung-min received the Korean Award for Hans Christian Andersen for her first original picture book, Hide and Seek, as well as the Noma Concours for Picture Book Illustrations Encouragement Prize, in 2004. Ugly Baby Duck was exhibited at the 2007 Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava (BIB). She was chosen as the illustrator for the Korean Pavilion at the Bologna Children's Book Fair with The Song of Aggabi in 2009. Today is Tonkatsu and Curried Rice was a finalist in the IBBY Selection of Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities in 2023. She has illustrated over 200 books encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles, such as picture books, stories for children, and nonfiction.

Style 
Oh Seung-min employs a variety of styles depending on the genre she is working with. Since she thinks that the role of images in a book is not to adorn the text but to serve as a guide in conveying the story visually, she tries to choose a style of drawing that best fits the subject matter and theme of each book. This results in an array of different styles. For instance, Today is Tonkatsu and Curried Rice, a work that depicts the emotional turmoil of a child with ADHD, was mostly produced using computer graphics. She deftly handles an emotionally charged topic by using the color blue to convey the child's emotions amidst a background of black-and-white mentality that labels children as either good or bad. The Red God takes on the serious subject of animal testing through the eyes of a mouse. Life and death as well as despair and redemption are rendered in vivid colors. In My Doksan-Dong, which was selected as a KBBY Recommended Book, Oh uses oil pastels and paints to capture how the rough but heartwarming neighborhood used to look like in the 1980s, and the lives contained within.

Awards 

 2023 Selected as an IBBY Outstanding Book for Young People with Disabilities – Today is Tonkatsu and Curried Rice
 2009 Selected as the illustrator for the Korean Pavilion at the Bologna Children's Book Fair – The Song of Aggabi
 2007 Exhibited at the Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava (BIB) – Ugly Baby Duck
 2004 Noma Concours for Picture Book Illustrations Encouragement Prize – Hide and Seek
 2004 Korean Award for Hans Christian Andersen – Hide and Seek

Works as Writer and Illustrator 

2022 The Red God (Manmanhan Books) 
2022 The Tree that Fled the War (Hanullim Kids) 
2022 Ruho the Tiger (Changbi) 
2021 Today is Tonkatsu and Curried Rice (Hanullim Special) 
2016 Alice's Wonderful Hair Salon (Kossum) 
2004 Hide and Seek (Nurimbo)

Collaborations with other authors 

2020 The Secret of Yeondong-Dong (Changbi) 
2019 My Doksan-Dong (Moonji) 
2019 I am An Jung-Geun (Wisdom House) 
2008 Myung-Hee's Picture Book (Borim) 
2011 Mias Traumbär (aracari verlag, Switzerland) 
2007 Red, Red, What Kind of Red? (Sigong Junior) 
2007 Rojo, rojo, ¿qué es rojo? (Altea, Mexico) 
2007 Chasing, Fleeing, Searching, Hiding (Woongjin Junior) 
2007 咚咚咚咚, 敲响科学的门 自然科学 动物的生存本领 (百花洲文艺出 版社, China) 
2006 The Song of Aggabi (Nurimbo) 
2005 Ugly Baby Duck (Woongjin Junior)

References 

1974 births
Living people
South Korean illustrators
South Korean children's writers
South Korean children's book illustrators