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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
63 artworks sold, each becoming a seed of solidarity
One artwork becomes the oxygen that keeps a fellow artist creating.
Sales proceeds go to the artist mutual-aid fund.
Dream Haven
Yoon Gyeom
About the Artist
Yun Gyeom is a painter who translates the sentiments of healing and serenity into oil on canvas. Through works such as 〈Serenity Fortress〉, she unfolds the textures of daily life and inner peace through soft colors and forms. Together with artist Lee Yuji, she has presented two-person exhibitions including 〈1st Track—Healing〉 at Seojeong Art Center (2017) and 〈Exploring Life〉 at GG2 Gallery (2025).
Artist Statement
In Search of a Place — Looking for My Place, My Fortress
My work begins with the act of repeatedly drawing lines and immersing myself in them. Drawing a line, then layering and stacking lines again, is not simply a formal technique; it is a process of containing inner anxiety and conflict — not dissolving them at one stroke, but holding them in check and trimming them down little by little. Within repetition, I tame an unsteady feeling, and from within it I make a new order and structure. It is a ritual act of holding myself up. In this act, the patterns formed at the crossing of necessity and chance become my own fortress. The fortress is a space of protection and refuge, and at the same time a metaphor for a life that, still unfinished, keeps moving toward the light.
For a long time I have observed insects and birds gathering material from their surroundings to build their nests. Their nests have functions of concealment and camouflage but are also living grounds for survival, and at the same time places of a cycle in which they are emptied and refilled. I, too, take repetitive patterns and the afterimages of light as my materials, build a fortress, and within it reflect on an unstable reality and inner self. This process reveals me as an incomplete being, and carries within it the strength to keep moving toward hope even inside anxiety.
In recent works, I place small object-images on top of repetitive patterns. These objects are not mere attachments; they work, from an observer's viewpoint, as devices through which to look back at and overcome my inner self. Objects such as airplanes, houses, submarines, and hang gliders are symbols of movement and stay, of exploration and refuge, and within the world of repetition they reveal the artist's self-portrait. They expand the existing concept of the fortress and lend the picture a more concrete, self-portrait-like narrative.
My fortress is not yet finished; it is a fortress in flux. It is not a tightly closed place but an open, multi-layered space that allows viewers to fill it with their own experience and senses. Hardening little by little through the process of repetition and immersion, this fortress is in the end my self-portrait — and resembles us all, as we live unsettled lives.
— from the artist's note —
The act of repeatedly drawing lines reveals a self that cannot bear to see the world as incomplete. While I am absorbed like this, I fall into a kind of unknowable selflessness. As lines are drawn and filled in, a new world that cannot be defined appears on the canvas. This world reveals a self who has no choice but to see the world differently from others.
The forms that appear on the picture plane through extremely simple yet repetitive movements look like a path of seeking, a way of finding myself. Through line-drawing — or line-making — I explore formal variations of repeated labor. The "patterns of lines" produced by countless accumulated moments of choice that draw the boundary between necessity and chance modulate into images of inscrutable nature — cacti, undersea coral, clouds, waves, forests, mountain ranges — or into the unsettled mental images called imagery.
Key Career Highlights
Education
2014 B.F.A. in Painting, College of Formative Arts, Daegu University
Solo Exhibitions
2025 Invitational, Loha Gallery, "In Search of a Place," Seoul
2025 Invitational, Umoha Gallery, "Blue Afterimage," Yongin
2024 "Nature Balance: Survival Harvest," Art Boda Gallery, Seoul
2023 Invitational, Collabo Collage Gallery, Ulsan
2023 "Undecided Fortress," Informel Gallery, Seoul
2019 "Mang'mang (Endless Boundary)," Artmora Gallery, Seoul
2017 "Asurai," Makeshop Art Space, Paju
2016 "Vertigo: Landscape of Reverie," Gallery Beone, Pangyo
2015 "Vertigo: Dizzying Landscape," Guoldam Gallery, Incheon
2014 "Refined World," New Frontier Art Space, Suseong Artpia, Daegu
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026 SAF 2026, Insa Art Center, Seoul
2025 Keepery Gallery 12-Artist Exhibition, Seoul
2025 Laporium Small Works Exhibition (3rd), Loha Gallery, Seoul
2025 "Exploring Life" Two-Person Exhibition, GG2 Gallery Seongsu, Seoul
2025 Dapsimni Art Lab, E-Land Foundation 16th Open Call Exhibition, Seoul
2024 Chuncheon Art Island 2024, Nami Island Pyeonghwarang Gallery, Chuncheon
2024 Art Record Cheongju, Geu Eotteon Gallery, Cheongju
2024 "The Wonderful Spring," FKI Center, Public Gallery, Seoul
2023 The Collection Art Fair & Exhibition, Hyundai Department Store Ulsan
2023 Mugungmujin Exhibition, Chunghwa Gallery, Seoul
2022 Playground, Sangsangmadang Gallery, Seoul
2022 ART Daejeon "My First Collection," Shinsegae Gallery Daejeon
2021 Art Prize, Gangnam Nonhyeon Furniture Street, Seoul
2021 ART 3.6.9, Platform L, Seoul
2021 Art Gyeonggi × Art Road 77, Camerata Gallery, Paju Heyri
2021 "Ecology of the Mind," Shinsegae Gallery Gwangju
2020 KEAs 2020 Ontact: Nevertheless, Art Dang, Seoul
2020 Young Korean Artist Collaboration Music+Art Design, Seoul Forest Cosociety, Seoul
2020 "The Moment," Artmora Gallery, New Jersey
2020 ASYAAF Asian University & Young Artist ARTISTY Special Exhibition, Hongdae Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul
2020 A1 Young Artist Exhibition, Geumboseong Art Center, Seoul
2020 "Still Life," Government Complex Gallery, Seoul
2019 ART 3.6.9, Yongsan Craft Center, Seoul
2019 "Bumurim: Erasing Boundaries," Pyeongtaek Art Center, Pyeongtaek
2019 "Nature," Artmora Gallery, New Jersey
2019 "Landscape and Beyond," Shinsegae Gallery Centum City, Busan
2018 Artmora Open Call, Artmora Gallery, Seoul
2018 A1 Art Office Emerging Artist Exhibition, Geumboseong Art Center, Seoul
2018 3rd New Drawing Project, Yangju Municipal Jang Ucchin Museum, Yangju
2018 Art 236, Place Camp, Jeju
2017 "Scene: Seen," Artertain, Seoul
2017 "Refill+ing," Seloart Gallery, Seoul
2017 "Small Gift" Exhibition, Art Eum Gallery, Daegu
2017 "Healing Thoughts" Two-Person Exhibition, Seojeong Art Center, Seoul
2017 Insa Salon, Gallery Misulsegye, Seoul
2016 "Landscape of the Mind," Gallery Kyoung, Daegu
2016 ASYAAF, DDP, Seoul
2016 PROLOGUE 2016, Makeshop Art Space, Paju
2016 13th Emerging Artist Statement Exhibition — Top 5 Finals, Gallery Misulsegye, Seoul
2016 MAKESHOP TOP10 2016, Makeshop Art Space, Paju
2015 13th Emerging Artist Statement Exhibition, Imlip Museum, Gongju
2015 13th Emerging Artist Statement Exhibition, Gallery Misulsegye, Seoul
2015 "I Am an Unknown Artist," Arko Art Center, Seoul
2015 Hidden Track, Beomeo Art Street, Daegu
2015 "Key.ddok." Exhibition, Kidari Gallery, Daegu
2015 "Summer, Beautiful," Tongyeong Art Gallery, Tongyeong
2014 A1 Art Office Emerging Artist Exhibition, Gana Insa Art Center, Seoul
2014 A1 Art Office Window Exhibition, A1 Art Office, Seongnam
2014 "Discovery," Art Center PPlus, Seoul
2014 ASYAAF, Culture Station Seoul 284, Seoul
2014 "Encounter," Tongyeong Art Gallery, Tongyeong
2014 "Aggregation and Convergence," Special Exhibition at the Republic of Korea Southern International Contemporary Art Festival, Daegu Culture & Arts Center, Daegu
Residencies & Awards
2022 5th Incarnation Culture & Arts Foundation Creative Grant
2019 Samsung Bespoke Rendezvous Design Competition, Finalist
2018 2nd Place Camp Jeju ART-236, Bronze Prize, Jeju
2018 3rd New Drawing Project, Selected Artist, Yangju Municipal Jang Ucchin Museum
2016 13th Emerging Artist Statement Exhibition, Excellence Award, Gallery Misulsegye, Seoul
2016 Makeshop Art Space STUDIO M17, Artist-in-Residence, Paju
2016 National University Art Competition, Selected, Seoul
2015 National University Art Competition, Selected, Changwon
2014 National University Art Competition, Selected, Changwon
Collections
Arko Art Center, Makeshop Art Space, Daegu University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation, Seoul Culture Headquarters Museum Division
Art Fairs
2025 Singapore Art Fair, Artmora Gallery, Singapore
2024 Jeju Art Fair, Emerging Artist Special Exhibition
2021 Euljiro Art Fair, Seoul
2020 Euljiro Art Fair, Seoul
2020 Art Fair 14C, Artmora Gallery, Jersey
2019 Art Gwangju, Artmora Gallery, Gwangju
2019 Art Busan, Artmora Gallery, Busan
2017 Cheonbyeon Art Fair, Artertain Gallery, Seoul
2015 Gyeongnam International Art Fair, Tongyeong Gallery, Gyeongnam
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Magazine
Yoon Gyeom — Lines, Repetition, Forests: Korean Contemporary Painter
Yoon Gyeom draws lines repeatedly — until they become a forest, then a fortress. A precariat artist building shelter of repetition.
2026-04-09 · 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.
2026-04-20 · 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.
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Recently Sold
63 artworks sold recently
Two beginnings made by one piece
- For you —
- One-of-a-kind in the world
- For the artist —
- the next month of their practice
- 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.