Price
₩9,000,000
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.
Butterfly's Dream
Song Gwangyeon
- Exhibition
- Oh Yoon Terracotta Relief Exhibition
- Category
- Korean Painting
- Material
- Acrylic on canvas
- Size
- 72.7×72.7cm · Size 20 · Medium How big is this? →
- Year
- 2025
- Price
- ₩9,000,000
- Availability
- For sale
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 humanity's innate dream and happiness
The overarching title of this body of work is The Dream of the Butterfly.
The Butterfly's Dream series began from the wish that, before the human warmth drained away by excessive desire and the materialist mindset of contemporary people, we might return to our innate human posture and, through ceaseless effort like the order of nature, pursue a precious life of happiness. This is my dream, and at the same time a wish that it may become a dream shared with our contemporaries.
In Butterfly's Dream, a butterfly always appears, filling the emptied design of a peony painting with embroidery. The peony painting motif — a special code and identity of the work — does not only borrow the imagery of Korean traditional folk painting (minhwa); it also absorbs the inner nutrients the motif carries. In the traditional sense the peony signifies wealth and glory and bears a quality of prayer for blessing (gibok), and I have used it as a form that branches out into my own personal meaning, reflecting my view of the work. By giving form to the act in which the butterfly fills, stitch by stitch, the embroidery of life for tomorrow's still-to-be-completed dream, I was able to visually amplify the essential meaning of the particular and pure yearning that human beings hold.
What I focused on most in the work was projecting the ideal motto and values I want to convey, drawn from the Eastern — and more specifically Korean — sensibility, into my view of art. As a painter holding a brush, I chose the most familiar, basic, and elemental medium of paint (acrylic) and used it to depict an entirely different material — the textile of an embroidered peony painting — as if it were a three-dimensional, realistic object. The moments of replicating it stitch by stitch like embroidery I sublimated into "a yearning for happiness, an act of prayer for blessing."
All the works take a contemporary situation as their backdrop, and some borrow works of pop art icons such as Andy Warhol or Lichtenstein, drawing upon the meanings their works carry — their period, the loss of humanity, and the pathologies of society. In particular, using as a background code the mass-produced prints of these masters — directly opposed to the meaning of embroidery filled with the diligence, effort, and earnestness that the Butterfly's Dream series emphasizes — also implies a deliberate, direct satire.
Key Career Highlights
Related materials
Korean media · Original Korean article
This article text is currently available in Korean. Open the source to read the original version.
Korean media · Original Korean article
This article text is currently available in Korean. Open the source to read the original version.
Korean media · Original Korean article
This article text is currently available in Korean. Open the source to read the original version.
Korean media · Original Korean article
This article text is currently available in Korean. Open the source to read the original version.
Korean media · Original Korean article
This article text is currently available in Korean. Open the source to read the original version.
Magazine
Korean Traditional Painting Meets the Modern: Ink, Pigment, and the Present
Korean traditional painting is far more than old-fashioned art. Materials like hanji, ink, powdered pigments, and mineral colors come alive in the hands of contemporary artists in entirely new ways. Through 25 Korean paintings in SAF 2026, this piece explores how traditional media meets a modern sensibility.
Apr 8, 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 Song Gwangyeon
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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.