Price
₩1,800,000
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.
Light Stays-3
Seo Geumjaeng
- Category
- Painting
- Material
- Acrylic on canvas
- Size
- 53×33.4cm · Size 10 · Small How big is this? →
- Year
- 2020
- Price
- ₩1,800,000
- 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 rests upon an everyday space that does not seem special, and someone, from far off or close by, looks at the space where the subject once stayed.
The spaces in which we live exert an important influence on our lives, but the familiar, ordinary feeling of the everyday often keeps us from clearly recognizing this. When such an everyday space is rendered as an artwork, the viewer can approach the work more easily, drawn in by the universality of everyday life, and once back in the everyday, can find an occasion to recognize anew the meaning of a space they once perceived as artwork.
In an actual space, an object is chosen and placed, but its meaning is gained as a trace of presence. Through this process, one comes to recognize that space carries the trace of a human being, and through such traces, one comes to wonder about presence. 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 the property of being unerasable. Through recognizing the everyday spaces around us, finding meaning there and discovering traces of presence, I want to project the psychology felt within a personal space.
For me, 'a space I belong to' means a very intimate, daily space. Within repeated daily life, the space I come to belong to takes on its own subjective color, and performs the function of remembering me. The scenes shown through these spaces hold within them feelings linked to what I have experienced in life.
Doubt and imagination toward the repeating everyday continue without break, and within ordinary daily life, the catching of an unfamiliar scene also takes place. Daily life is made up of many human activities; it means the whole sequence of activity made up of repetition and creation, day by day, and is itself accidental and improvisational, yet so natural that it is also the time, or the event, that passes by before one recognizes it. Therefore, even people living their lives, while aware that they exist within the everyday—where the time and the space they belong to coexist—find it hard to receive that as something with special meaning. For human beings, the everyday can be called an ongoing stage on which everyone is the protagonist.
By making spaces psychologically composed from such daily-life experiences, through the arrangement of objects placed within those spaces and the various ways in which they are shown, I sought to express the spaces of the everyday I have experienced. Through the 'space' within the picture, I tried to recognize anew what meaning it holds for me, and through the form in which the work appears, I tried to attempt a continuing conversation with the viewer.
The everyday space and object were taken on the premise that they would be granted subjective meaning by the one who sees, and by composing spaces that hold the various meanings the everyday carries, I tried to provide, in addition to artistic experience, an occasion to recognize the everyday space anew.
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
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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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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.