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Browse artworks at https://www.saf2026.com/en/artworks, click on the artwork you like, then click the "Buy Now" button to proceed to checkout via Toss Payments.

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Shipping within Korea is a flat rate of ₩0. International shipping is not currently available.

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Yes. Returns are accepted within 7 days of delivery. Return shipping costs are the responsibility of the buyer. Contact us at contact@kosmart.org to initiate a return.

How long does delivery take?

Order processing takes 1–3 business days, and delivery within Korea takes 1–7 business days.

Are the artworks original works?

Yes. All artworks are original works by verified Korean artists participating in the SAF 2026 exhibition. Certificates of authenticity are provided where applicable.

What is the purpose of artwork sales revenue?

Sales proceeds support the Korea Smart Cooperative artist mutual-aid fund, which provides low-interest loans to fellow artists trapped in predatory lending.

What is the price and size of "Butterfly's Dream"?

Price: ₩9,000,000. Size: 72.7x72.7cm. Medium: Acrylic on canvas, made in 2025.

Can I see other works by Song Gwangyeon?

Yes. View Song Gwangyeon's full SAF 2026 collection at https://www.saf2026.com/artworks/artist/%EC%86%A1%EA%B4%91%EC%97%B0.

Is "Butterfly's Dream" an original work with a certificate of authenticity?

Yes. "Butterfly's Dream" is an original Acrylic on canvas work by Song Gwangyeon, verified through SAF 2026. A certificate of authenticity is provided where applicable.

Butterfly's Dream · Song Gwangyeon

Price

₩9,000,000

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Certificate of authenticity included

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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

98 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.

Authenticity

One-of-a-kind original

What "edition" means →

CategoryKorean PaintingMaterialAcrylic on canvas Size72.7×72.7cm · Size 25 · Medium How big is this? →Year2025Price₩9,000,000

Full collecting guide →

About the Artist

Song Gwangyeon is a painter known for the 〈Dream of a Butterfly〉 series, which combines Korean iconography with the visual language of Pop Art. After completing her M.A. in Western Painting at Yeungnam University, she has held 24 solo exhibitions at venues including Gallery Sun (Seoul), BNK Kyongnam Bank HQ Art Gallery (Changwon), and Ulju Culture & Arts Center. She was selected as a Solo Booth artist at the 2017 START Art Fair at Saatchi Gallery in London. Her international exhibitions include the 2016 invitational at the Korean Cultural Center in Washington D.C. and the 2017 invitational at the Korean Cultural Center in Shanghai. Her works are held in the collections of the Ulsan Museum of Art and the Korean Folk Village Museum.

Artist Statement

Butterfly's Dream An act of yearning toward the dream and happiness essential to humankind The overarching title of the works is The Butterfly's Dream. The Butterfly's Dream series began from the wish that, for modern people drained by excessive desire and steeped in materialism, we might return to humanity's original posture and pursue a worthy happiness in life filled with steady effort, like the order of nature. This is my own dream, and a yearning that it might also become the shared dream of those living today. In The Butterfly's Dream a butterfly always appears, filling in embroidery upon a hollowed pattern of a peony painting (Morando). The peony-painting motif — the work's special code and identity — is not borrowed from Korean folk painting (Minhwa) only as image, but for the inner nourishment it carries: in traditional meaning peony painting signifies wealth and prosperity and bears the quality of supplication for blessing (gibok-seong, 祈福性). I have extended this into a personal meaning, using it as a form that reflects the work's worldview. By embodying in the work the act of a butterfly stitch by stitch filling in the embroidery (jasu) of life for a dream to be completed tomorrow, I was able to maximize visually the essential meaning of the singular, pure yearning humans hold. What the work most concentrates on is projecting onto the particular sentiment of the East — and especially of Korea — the ideal motto and values that the artist's worldview seeks to convey. As a painter holding a brush, I chose the most familiar, basic, and primal medium of paint (acrylic), and depicted, sculpturally and realistically as if an objet, an entirely different material — embroidered peony fabric. The moments of replicating, thread by thread as if embroidering, were sublimated into "a yearning for happiness and an act of supplication." All the works take the contemporary situation as their setting, and some appropriate works by pop art icons such as Andy Warhol and Lichtenstein, drawing on the meaning and historical context of those works and the issues they raised — the loss of humanity, a society grown sick. In particular, using mass-produced prints by these masters as a background code — set against the meaning of embroidery filled in with the diligence, effort, and earnestness that the Butterfly's Dream series highlights — also carries an explicit intent of satire.

Key Career Highlights

M.A., Western Painting, Yeungnam University 24 Solo Exhibitions 2025 K-POP ART Song Kwangyeon, PAC Gallery Opening Curated Invitational, Jinju 2025 Dream of a Butterfly - Song Kwangyeon, Gallery Sun Invitational, Seoul 2025 Dream of a Butterfly - Song Kwangyeon (Ulsan Foundation for Arts and Culture Art Support Selected Project, 2020/22/24/25), Ulsan 2024 Dream of a Butterfly - Song Kwangyeon, BNK Kyongnam Bank HQ Art Gallery Invitational, Changwon 2019 Song Kwangyeon Invitational, Ulju Culture & Arts Center, Ulsan 2018 Dream of a Butterfly - Song Kwangyeon, DGB Gallery (Gallery G&G Curated, Daegu Bank 2nd HQ) Invitational, Daegu 2016 Dream of a Butterfly - Song Kwangyeon, Art Hub Online Gallery Invitational 2015 Dream of a Butterfly - Song Kwangyeon, Chilgok Kyungpook National University Hospital Healing Gallery Invitational, Daegu 2014 Dream of a Butterfly - Song Kwangyeon, Gallery Cheongdam Invitational, Daegu 2010 Dream of a Butterfly - Song Kwangyeon, Gallery H Invitational, Hyundai Department Store Ulsan 2010 Dream of a Butterfly, Song Kwangyeon Invitational, Dongwon Gallery, Daegu 2008 Maekhyang Gallery 32nd Anniversary Song Kwangyeon Invitational, Maekhyang Gallery, Daegu Solo Booth 2017 START 2017 (Selected as Solo Booth Artist), Saatchi Gallery, London, UK 2-Person Exhibition 2016 POP of KOLOR (Kyungjoo Park & Kwangyeon Song), Korean Cultural Center at the Korean Embassy in the US Invitational, Washington DC, USA 2-Person Exhibition 2021 Into the Aesthetics of Tradition, 2-Person Invitational Curated Exhibition Im Sangjin & Song Kwangyeon, Gallery Mua, Busan 3-Person Exhibition 2017 Ongojisin, Korea-China 3-Person Exhibition, Korean Cultural Center in Shanghai, Shanghai Hyanggang Gallery Curated Invitational, Korean Cultural Center in Shanghai, China 60+ Curated Exhibitions Infinite Painting, Flowers Have Bloomed, Cheonan Museum of Art, Cheonan Wow~! Funny Pop, Gyeongnam Museum of Art, Changwon A Certain Art Community: Boogie Woogie Museum, Ulsan Museum of Art True Luxury with ART (StART Art Fair Seoul 2022 Preview), Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas STEP-UP: MOMENTUM, Rina Gallery, Seoul Marilyn Monroe and Korean Pop Art (Shinsegae Centum City Grand Opening Special Exhibition & Shinsegae Touring Exhibition, Busan, Seoul, Gwangju) Paintings That Bring Happiness (Sejong Center Curated), Book Seoul Dream Forest Art Center Art & Joy (Park Youngduk Gallery / Insa Gallery), Insa Gallery, Seoul Power of Ulsan Art, 25 Mid-career Ulsan Artists Invitational, Ulsan Culture & Arts Center Blue Dot Asia, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul Korean Pop Art, Insa Art Festival, Seoul Time Travel Exhibition, Art Park Gallery, Seoul Beauty Painting Exhibition, Insa Gallery, Seoul Eye-Catching, Blue Dot M Gallery Opening Exhibition, Changwon Philosophy-Clad Artists, Geumgang Museum of Art, Changwon Aesthetic Paradox, Namgaram Museum, Jinju Colores de Corea, Korean Cultural Center in Spain Curated 4-Person Exhibition, Madrid, Spain Art Fairs: START Art Fair (Saatchi Gallery, London), Art Singapore, Art Beijing, Art Taipei, START Art Fair Seoul, Seoul Open Art Fair, Korea International Art Fair, Art Busan, Galleries Art Fair, Daegu Art Fair, Asia Contemporary Art Show (Hong Kong), BAMA, Seoul Art Show, LA Art Show Collections: Ulsan Museum of Art, Korean Folk Village Museum, Gallery Wi (Pyeongtaek), Leeahn Gallery, Insa Gallery, Gallery Art Park, Gallery Cheongdam (Daegu), Dongwon Gallery, and numerous corporate, hospital, and private collectors