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₩1,800,000

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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

68 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.

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Light Stays-3

Seo Geumjaeng

Authenticity

One-of-a-kind original

What "edition" means →
CategoryPaintingMaterialAcrylic on canvas Size53×33.4cm · Size 10 · Small How big is this? →Year2020Price₩1,800,000

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

Education
B.F.A., Department of Painting, Sookmyung Women's University
M.F.A., Department of Formative Arts, Graduate School, Sookmyung Women's University

Solo Exhibitions
2025 <Density of Memory>, Gallery Invitational, Art Space J, Bundang
2025 <Seo Geum-aeng Exhibition>, Gallery Ilho, Seoul
2024 <Energy of Space>, Competition, Jungnang Art Center Hanpyeong Gallery, Seoul
2023 <Paradox of an Ordinary Day>, Alo Invitational, Gwanghwamun Ssalong, Seoul
2023 <Energy of Space>, E-Land Curated Exhibition, Kensington Resort Gallery, Jeju
2022 <Selected Artist Exhibition>, E-Land Space, Seoul
2022 <Lingering Gaze>, E-Land Curated Exhibition, Guro NC Department Store, Seoul
2020 <Looking at Everyday Life>, Invitational, Sempio Space, Icheon
2018 <Seo Geum-aeng Invitational>, GS Tower The Street Gallery, Seoul
2016 <Traces, Lingering>, A-Company Curated, Humax Village, Bundang
2011 <Placing the Heart in Space>, Gallery Competition, Gallery Dool, Seoul
2010 <Emerging Artist Competition>, Topohaus, Seoul
2008 <Rooms>, Leehyung Art Center, Seoul

Group Exhibitions
2025 <ASYAAF Asia University Student & Young Artist Art Festival>, Culture Station Seoul 284, Seoul
2025 <Encountering Dreams>, Competition, Gallery Ilho, Seoul
2024 <Waves of Memory>, Sewol Ferry 10th Anniversary Memorial Exhibition, Modern & Contemporary Art Museum Damda, Yongin
2024 <1st Creative Conference Memorial Exhibition>, E-Land Cultural Foundation, E-Land Space, Seoul
2022 <K-Auction Premium Online Auction Preview>, K Auction Art Tower, Seoul
2021 <Smooth and Grooved>, Gong Gallery Cafe, Ilsan
2021 <K-Auction Premium Online Auction Preview>, K Auction Art Tower, Seoul
2021 <Emerging Artist Space Support Exhibition>, United Gallery, Seoul
2020 <All Different Paintings>, Art Space H, Seoul
2019 <Mediazen Small Paintings>, Art Space H, Seoul
2019 <Breeze Art Fair>, Nodeul Island, Seoul
2019 <LOCAL PRIDE>, Gongsyel Curated, Seochon Cafe Street, Seoul
2018 <Breeze Art Fair>, Sejong Center for the Performing Arts Museum, Seoul
2018 <Gwanghwamun International Art Festival>, Sejong Center for the Performing Arts Museum, Seoul
2017 <ASYAAF Asia University Student & Young Artist Art Festival>, DDP, Seoul
2017 <Daelim Changgo x Minari House>, Daelim Changgo Gallery Column, Seoul
2016 <Breeze Art Fair>, Blue Square NEMO, Seoul
2015 <Sookmyung Women's University 110th Anniversary Alumni Exhibition>, Moonshin Museum of Art, Seoul
2015 <Breeze Art Fair>, Seoul Innovation Park, Seoul
2014 <ASYAAF>, Culture Station Seoul 284, Seoul
2011 <ASYAAF>, Hongik University, Seoul
2010 <ASYAAF>, Sungshin Women's University, Seoul
2010 <Summer Summer Summer, Sookmyung Western Painting Alumni Exhibition>, Insa Art Center, Seoul
2010 <Breathing House Project>, Gallery Curated, Kimi Art, Seoul
2010 <ARCK U.S. Tour Exhibit-II>, Tacoma, Washington, U.S.A.
2009 <Behind SPACE>, Gallery Curated, EM Art Gallery, Seoul
2009 <Auction Star & Hana Bank Gold Club Joint Curated Exhibition>, Dogok Tower Hana Bank PB Center, Seoul
2009 <ASYAAF>, Former Defense Security Command, Seoul
2009 <ARCK U.S. Tour Exhibit-I Gallery HOMELAND>, Portland, U.S.A.
2009 <Hearts in Motion, Sookmyung Western Painting Alumni Exhibition>, Insa Art Center, Seoul
2009 <Seoul Auction 4th Auction Preview>, Shinsegae Gallery Seoul, Busan
2008 <EVERYDAY LIFE>, Gallery Curated, Gallery Sam, Busan
2008 <ASYAAF>, Former Seoul Station, Seoul
2008 <Phenomenon and Illusion>, Gallery Curated, AKA SEOUL Gallery, Seoul
2008 <Art Road Festival Booth>, Central City, Seoul
2008 <Intro Painting Exhibition>, Sejong Center Annex, Seoul
2007 <KPAM Pet Mania Exhibition>, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul
2007 <studio_UNIT OPEN STUDIO>, Gallery HUT, KT Art Hall, Seoul
2007 <18th, 19th Container & Jaewon Exhibition>, Cheongpa Gallery, Seoul

Awards
2009 ART CONNECTION KOREA 1st Emerging Artist Grand Prize
2008 Grand Art Exhibition of Korea Contemporary Art Selection (Hongik Design Center)
2007 Grand Painting Exhibition of Korea Western Painting Special Selection (Seoul Museum of Art Branch)
2007 Sookmyung Women's University Best Graduation Work Award (Cheongpa Gallery)
2005 World Peace Art Competition Western Painting Selection (Ansan Danwon Museum of Art)

Collections
MMCA Art Bank, E-Land Cultural Foundation,
A-Company, APC Works <Monthly Hanok> and numerous private collections

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Price

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Two beginnings made by one piece

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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.