Nestled on the slopes of Yeongchuksan near Tongdosa in Ulsan, painter Lee Young-sil finds her inspiration where mountain, forest, and crisis converge. 

Her latest works, presented at the group exhibition held at Arte Forest Gallery (Insadong 5-gil 12) on September 8, confront the urgency of climate change and the quiet disappearance of endangered species. At the heart of her vision is the tiger—rendered not as a fearsome predator, but as a whimsical, gentle figure. Her “Blue Tiger” recalls the folk motifs of Kkachi-Horang-i (Magpie and Tiger) paintings, yet stripped of their traditional ferocity.

 Instead, her tigers embody warmth, irony, and longing. “I began to ask myself: what survival strategy remains for animals on the brink of extinction?” Lee reflects. “In a paradoxical way, the tiger wishes to become a pet.” Today, she points out, the most populous creatures after humans are domesticated animals—dogs and cats. By recasting the tiger as a playful companion, Lee lays bare the absurdity of survival in a world shaped by human desire. The ornament hanging from the tiger’s neck becomes a sharp metaphor for that desire. “It is ultimately human greed that has brought the earth to this state,” Lee explains. “In my paintings, I wanted to capture the tension between consumption and restraint, between destruction and coexistence.”

 Her art draws strength from her surroundings. Living and working in a studio immersed in nature, Lee describes her daily walks along mountain paths as essential to her practice. 

“The flowers, birds, and fish I encounter enter my paintings and form an entire universe of their own,” she says. 

By grounding her compositions in traditional lacquer techniques on hemp cloth (geonchil), Lee links Korean materials and aesthetics with contemporary ecological narratives. 

Her work is not a repetition of folk tradition but a reimagining—a modern expansion of the folk painting spirit. Lee Young-sil’s tiger is no longer a solitary beast of the mountains, but a symbolic being that searches for coexistence in the era of climate crisis. It embodies both fragility and resilience, reminding us that the fate of the natural world is inseparable from our own.