Price
₩2,500,000
A unique original — the only one in the world
Art protects art
8 out of 10
artists are shut out by banks
354
loans extended to fellow artists
95%
repayment rate — trust comes full circle
~KRW 140M
interest saved vs. predatory rates
Until the next exhibition, the next performance. For artists, income gaps are an unavoidable reality. For fellow artists forced into predatory loans just to afford paint, canvas, and studio rent, proceeds from this artwork become the Seed Fund — extending a fair hand at fair rates.
Voices of fellow artists
“The memory of going hungry for three days, alone, so my children wouldn't know.”
— 50s, theater artist
“I've been putting off urgent dental treatment because I can't afford it. I should be seeing a doctor regularly, but enduring instead of going has become a habit.”
— 50s, actor
“I kept delaying ear treatment because I had no money, and the symptoms in both ears worsened.”
— 30s, musician
“I couldn't pay my hospitalized mother's bills, so we had to delay her discharge, and she had to give up tests and treatment she needed.”
— 50s, actor/broadcaster
“Because of money troubles I had nowhere to go — drifting between gosiwon rooms and rehearsal studios, and for a while sleeping rough.”
— 30s, musician
“Because of unpaid rent, my collective was forced to vacate our shared workspace and home. Neither bank loans nor artist loans could help.”
— 50s, actor
“Without money, life collapses — and creating art? Out of the question.”
— 50s, artist
“It's painful that solving this month's money problems has to come before the work itself. As an artist, I can only earn well when the work succeeds — yet I have to chase odd jobs every month instead. It feels like being trapped in a vicious cycle.”
— 40s, musician
“Debt collection calls disrupted my rehearsals and performances, and the psychological burden made every day painful and the next day frightening.”
— 40s, theater artist
“Many times the loan payments looming each month forced me to step away from performing and focus on part-time work.”
— 50s, actor
“Sleeping less than four hours a night, juggling part-time jobs and theater — but the more I performed, the more debt piled up. Eventually I decided to quit performing.”
— 30s, actor
“When things were hardest, I couldn't even attend close friends' weddings or funerals — and as a result, relationships were severed.”
— 50s, actor/broadcaster
“When I said I was a stage actor, the loan officer called me "unemployed."”
— 50s, actor
“The shame and severed friendships that came with borrowing from people I knew, the pressure of failing to pay it back, the helplessness.”
— 50s, cartoonist/visual artist
“Even with programs meant for low-income citizens, I feel shame when I can't produce enough documentation simply because I'm an artist.”
— 30s, film/broadcasting professional
One artwork becomes the oxygen that keeps a fellow artist creating.
Sales proceeds go to the artist mutual-aid fund.
Placing the Heart in Space
Seo Geumjaeng
- Category
- Painting
- Material
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 70.7×60.6cm · Size 20 · Medium How big is this? →
- Year
- 2024
- Price
- ₩2,500,000
- Availability
- For sale
About the Artist
Seo Geumaeng is a painter who translates the energies and memories embedded in everyday spaces into painterly form. After graduating from the Department of Painting at Sookmyung Women's University, she completed her M.F.A. in Formative Arts at the same university's graduate school. She has held numerous solo exhibitions, from 〈Rooms〉 (Leehyung Art Center, 2008) to 〈Energy of Space〉 (E-Land Curated, 2023), 〈Density of Memory〉 (Art Space J, 2025), and 〈Seo Geum-aeng Exhibition〉 (Gallery Ilho, 2025). She has participated in ASYAAF, Breeze Art Fair, Gwanghwamun International Art Festival, and the K-Auction Premium Auction Preview. Her works are held in the collections of MMCA Art Bank and the E-Land Cultural Foundation.
Artist Statement
The story begins when the gaze settles on an everyday space that does not look special — and someone, from far away or up close, looks back at the space the subject has inhabited.
The spaces in which we live exert a great influence on our lives, but the familiarity and ordinariness of the everyday often keep us from recognizing this clearly. When such everyday spaces are translated into art, viewers can approach the work more easily through the universality the everyday provides; and once the space recognized as art returns to daily life, viewers are given an occasion to re-recognize the meaning that space holds.
In an actual space, an object is chosen and placed, but it acquires its meaning as a trace of presence. Through this, we come to recognize that space holds the traces of human beings, and through such traces we begin to wonder about presence itself. A trace remains regardless of the intent of the one who left it. Because the act of erasing a trace itself leaves another trace, traces have a quality that cannot be erased. By recognizing the everyday spaces around us, finding meaning there, and discovering traces of presence, I try to project the psychology felt within personal space.
For me, "the space I belong to" means a deeply familiar everyday space. The space I come to inhabit through the repetition of everyday life takes on a color of its own and performs the function of remembering me. The scenes glimpsed through these spaces hold within them feelings tied to what I have lived through.
My doubts and fancies about the repetitive everyday continue without end, and within ordinary life I sometimes catch a strange scene. The everyday is composed of all kinds of human activity — the entire process of activity that day after day repeats and creates anew, in itself accidental and impromptu yet so natural that the time or event passes us by before we recognize it. So even though human beings, who go on living, do recognize the everyday in which their time and space coexist, it is hard to take the everyday as something with a special meaning. For us, the everyday could be called an ongoing stage on which everyone is the leading role.
I sought to express the everyday spaces I have lived through by creating spaces psychologically staged from such daily experiences — through the arrangement of objects placed within those spaces and through various ways of presenting them. Through the "space" within the painting, I tried to re-recognize what meaning that space holds for me, and to attempt continuous communication with the viewer through the form in which the work is presented.
My work is premised on the idea that everyday spaces and objects gain a subjective meaning for those who see them; by staging spaces that hold the manifold meanings of the everyday, I have tried to create not only an artistic experience but also an occasion in which the everyday space itself can be newly perceived.
Key Career Highlights
Related materials
Kiaf SEOUL · Original Korean article
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Korean media · Original Korean article
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Korean media · Original Korean article
This article text is currently available in Korean. Open the source to read the original version.
YouTube · Original Korean article
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Korean media · Original Korean article
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Magazine
Seo Geum-aeng: Sensibility Blooming at the Tip of the Brush
Seo Geum-aeng paints the ordinary — light through a window, a familiar room — as quiet, thoughtful space. *Placing the Heart in Space*.
Apr 8, 2026 · Seed Art Festival
SAF Painters — From Korean Painting to Abstraction
The 40+ painters of SAF 2026, read across six lineages — from Reality and Utterance founders to KAIST-trained painters, Brussels sculpture MFAs, and Goryeo-Buddhist-painting masters.
Apr 20, 2026 · Seed Art Festival
Contemporary Art Pricing — Artist, Medium, Size, Date: 4 Factors of Korean Art Market
“Is this price fair?” The question every buyer asks. To answer it you need to understand the four forces that set art prices: artist, medium, size, and date.
May 2, 2026 · Seed Art FestivalOther works by Seo Geumjaeng
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- For you —
- One-of-a-kind in the world
- For the artist —
- the pride of standing with a peer
- For a fellow artist —
- a new ₩3,000,000 path of low-interest support
354 artists have walked this path of recovery; 95% returned to open it for the next.