︎
Maine College of Art & Design
2025 BFA Exhibition
May 2–16, 2025
Info

Jaden Kyung-Moon Bauch 



The Artist's Meal

The only thing people ever talk about when they talk about artists and money is about how they don’t have any. My work challenges this narrative by bringing art and finance into a shared dialogue, showing that creativity and financial literacy can coexist in powerful ways.

For my senior thesis, I provided 20 free financial coaching sessions to artists, tailoring guidance to their financial goals. In exchange, each participant contributed a self-taken image of food. I incorporated these into a large-scale still life painting, evoking abundance. Symbols of hope and prosperity reinforce a wish for financial success. Upon its sale, I will share half of my portion of the proceeds with the participants, reinforcing shared financial empowerment.

Food symbolizes abundance and security, qualities I want to associate with the artist’s life. By reinterpreting Dutch Still Life traditions and using finance as a framework, my work fosters both critical discourse and tangible action to challenge the starving artist narrative.

Ultimately, by using finance as the framework for my paintings, I hope to spark curiosity and encourage a deeper understanding of how these systems can intersect, offering a more hopeful and expansive perspective on money in creative fields.


Bio

Jaden Kyung-Moon Bauch is a Maine-based oil painter focused on representational realism. Her work explores themes of economics, markets, and the American dream, expressed through landscape and still life.

Jaden's commitment to the arts has been recognized through accolades including the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, the Albert K Murray Fine Arts Educational Grant, and the Letitia Moore Scholarship.

She is also passionate about financial services, particularly for artists and creatives. Jaden is currently pursuing the Certified Financial Planner certification. Her dual expertise in finance and art informs her unique painting approach, blending her understanding of financial systems with artistic practice.