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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
One artwork becomes the oxygen that keeps a fellow artist creating.
Sales proceeds go to the artist mutual-aid fund.
A World Between Pages - Spring
Cheon Jisu
- Category
- Painting
- Material
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 34.8×27.3cm · Size 5 · Small How big is this? →
- Year
- 2025
- Price
- ₩700,000
- Availability
- SOLD
About the Artist
Cheon Jisu is an artist working across painting, illustration, and book criticism. From 〈Giggle〉 at Moro Gallery in Seoul (2001) to 〈Library Fantasy〉 at The Space Gallery in Osan (2025), she has held nine solo and curated invitational exhibitions, with international engagements including 〈A Midsummer Night's Dream〉 at the Korean Embassy in Italy in Rome (2005) and a two-person exhibition at Kuga Museum of Art in Fukuoka, Japan (2018). She received the Grand Prize (Primo Premio) at the 4th Giovanni Pericone National Art Competition in Italy (2003), and in 2008 participated in the rock mural restoration at the UNESCO-designated Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. In 2021, she published the illustrated book-review collection Reading Atelier (Cheonnyeon-ui Sangsang). Her works are held in the collections of the Korean Embassy in Italy, the Rotary Club Fiuggi, and the Asia Publishing Culture Information Center.
Artist Statement
Library Fantasy
For years I have practiced "painting book review" — a body of work in which I draw and write from the inspiration of having read a book. I take the order constructed by an author within a book, deconstruct it through art, reconstruct it, and then record this very process in sentences — work that expresses a "meta gaze." Such deconstruction of structured, dominant narratives and images opened up an alternative imagination for me as a painter. Between the acts of reading, painting, and writing, a unique solidarity and chemical reaction took place among them, and from that process various inspirations bloomed in my mind. I call these inspirations "seeds of creative inspiration." Following each book's story, those seeds have made possible series of works in many forms.
The Library Fantasy series began with imagining the library as a "fantastic, vast living being." It is a new dimensional world where knowledge, nature, and time fuse. I do not feel a book as a mere lump of information but as a living being that transcends time and space. Primal nature, where lives breathe, and the library share a common memory. The things conceived and born from books and from nature grow imagination, and they expand by creating boundless time and space. So I observe and imagine new ecosystems of book and nature, and I bring forth another universe.
The worlds born within books generate knowledge and wisdom, and the ecosystems entangled with nature are organic beings in ceaseless motion. My observation and study of this fantastic, vital library is as boundless as the seeds of inspiration that endlessly arise. Like the life of the universe……
Key Career Highlights
Related materials
Magazine
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May 2, 2026 · Seed Art Festival
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.