Pest 2025

14 in x 17in mechanical pencil, alcohol marker, ink, charcoal, bristol board

Image from the Vestige of the Tiger series, an exploration of Korean history through the imagery of the Siberian tiger (now extinct in South Korea).

While the tiger may be a guardian in mythology, the real animal was thought of very differently. A tiger is dangerous when in close contact with people, and a threat to livestock. The Siberian tiger went extinct in Korea in about 1945, while Korea was under Japanese occupation, due to an effort by the Japanese government to eliminate large predator animals. While Korea would like to entirely blame Japan for the total loss of the tiger, tiger hunting has also been a long tradition in Korean history, so perhaps this was always an inevitability.