Seo Yeon

Raised by her grandmother in a small village surrounded by tangerine fields, without her parents, she had to be endlessly good to survive. Drawing was a luxury. Still, unable to suppress the urge to create, she ran away to the mainland at seventeen. Painting every day without fail to make a living, she gradually built a life as an artist, until she faced an irony: despite everything she had painted, not a single piece could truly be called "her own." The paintings she eventually came to make as "her own" now hold deeply personal emotions and experiences. She finds solace by depicting quiet moments that contrast with overwhelming loneliness, returning again and again to the Jeju she once fled. For Seoyeon, the canvas resembles a refuge. Among towering trees guarding a field that had turned green after giving away its yellow fruit, an abandoned container once stood. Squeezed into that cramped space, she felt, as a child, a complete sense of rest. Though that quiet refuge has scattered with time, her need for peace never left. After much wandering, her brushstrokes layered and soaked into the canvas, until a soft, dreamlike texture emerged, carrying her back to that place once more.