Price
₩1,100,000
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.
Sohwa: Digestion, Extinguishing, Burning (消化, 消火, 燒火)
Lee Chaewon
- Category
- Painting
- Material
- Oil on linen
- Size
- 72.7×90.9cm · Size 30 · Medium How big is this? →
- Year
- 2026
- Price
- ₩1,100,000
- Availability
- For sale
About the Artist
Lee Chaewon is an emerging painter based in Maryland, USA. She graduated summa cum laude from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) with a B.F.A. in Painting in 2024 and held her first solo exhibition 〈To Be Continued〉 at Lazarus Hall Gallery in Baltimore the same year. Her group exhibitions include 〈Summer Comes to My Hometown, Seoul〉 at the Korean Consulate in Washington D.C. (2024), 〈Spotlight: Graduating Seniors in Focus〉 at MICA's Fox Gallery (2024), and the Juried Undergraduate Exhibition at Deckers Gallery (2023). She received the MICA Distinguished International Student Award (2022 and 2024), the Presidential Scholarship, and numerous other institutional honors.
Artist Statement
I am attentive to the way one tries to shift outside the residue of feeling that arises from personal experience. Feelings that cannot be fixed within the inner world are not easily resolved; they move into other structures and stay there. This flow does not move toward a resolution or an ending, but is transformed into other states inside repetition and delay. My painting works like a device for briefly catching these unstable states, recording the process in which inner movements move and rearrange themselves through outside mediations.
I observe the change that happens when memory or sensation is converted into image. There are moments when familiar objects, scenes, or fragmented elements reveal more layers than expected. As I place different elements on the canvas, I see them connect, collide, or move off in entirely different directions. Some bring back the original memory; others form new relationships.
My work is an experiment in transferring, suspending, and rearranging — moving the inner trace into an outside device. Rather than fixing a particular feeling or event into one definition, I focus on the way it is moved and on the trace left in that process. The work develops not by closing toward completion but by continuing to explore states that are still staying, still changing.
Key Career Highlights
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Two beginnings made by one piece
- 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.