ARARIO GALLERY Presents Eun Sil Lee’s ‘Surging Waves’... Transforming Childbirth into ‘Joys and Sorrows’

[Financial News]"Giving birth and starting a new life is something to be celebrated, but within it lies a multitude of layered stories."For a female painter, childbirth is neither a hymn nor a lament. Yet, Eun Sil Lee wished to bring forth memories of childbirth—long kept tucked away—through this exhibition for the first time. She peels away the social conventions that have sealed childbirth under the words ‘blessing’ and ‘joy,’ instead conjuring landscapes filled with waves, lava, whirlpools, and mist. As the exhibition title ‘Surging Waves’ suggests, each canvas is swept by waves of different heights and speeds, symbolizing the major turning points in life.
An exhibition that interprets the intense experience of childbirth through painting is being held in Jongno, Seoul. ARARIO GALLERY Seoul announced on the 8th that Eun Sil Lee’s solo exhibition ‘Surging Waves’ will run until the 31st.

‘Surging Waves’ presents ten paintings (all created in 2025) that visualize the physical and psychological turbulence of childbirth as experienced by the artist. In particular, ‘Epidural Moment’—a 7.2-meter-wide ink and color painting—serves as the exhibition’s signature piece. The title refers to the anesthetic commonly known as an epidural. The artist depicts the hallucinatory sensations experienced when the anesthetic is administered during labor.
A mysterious creature, resembling a dragon or a giant serpent, writhes atop a green-misted mountain. On the left of the canvas, an open pelvis is visible, with the creature attempting to pass through.
Golden scales of the animal, winding across four panels, shimmer mysteriously, while fragmented bones appear throughout the work. The fantastical memories induced by extreme labor pain symbolically evoke the physical and emotional anesthesia that childbirth brings to an individual.
Eun Sil Lee explained, "I painted the moment when, under the influence of narcotic painkillers, my consciousness fragmented as if I were dreaming amid pain. It felt like a battlefield, yet another process was unfolding in my mind—a time when fantasy was injected into physical agony."
Her paintings employ a visual methodology that likens the explosive forces of cohesion and division experienced during childbirth to awe-inspiring natural phenomena. By overlaying personal experiences onto universal nature, the theme extends beyond a feminine narrative to encompass the physical and psychological trauma of human existence and the possibility of recovery.

Other notable works, ‘Tension Before Birth’ and ‘Vortex of Life’, vividly portray the labor pains that precede childbirth. By layering blue pigments, the artist captures the deep hues of the ocean, with a large vortex swirling on the water’s surface.
In ‘Tension Before Birth’, the approaching stormy sea represents the premonitory symptoms of pain, while ‘Vortex of Life’ depicts the powerful contractions that signal imminent delivery.
Additionally, works such as ‘The Unceasing Canyon’ and ‘At the Crossroads of Life and Death’ portray the bleeding that occurs during childbirth as flowing lava.

Other pieces—‘Struggle’, ‘Incision’, ‘Trace’, and ‘Overflowing Heart and Inadequate Attitude’—capture the physical marks left on the body after childbirth.
The works confront viewers with injuries that are temporary or not easily visible to others, such as bloodshot eyes from physical pressure (‘Struggle’), scars from surgical incisions during delivery (‘Incision’), stretch marks from pregnancy (‘Trace’), and postpartum mastitis (‘Overflowing Heart and Inadequate Attitude’).
Regarding this exhibition, Eun Sil Lee commented, "Society regards childbirth as noble and sacred, as if it is a universal experience for all women, but for the individual, it is a life-and-death event. Although it happened some time ago, I felt compelled as an artist to address such an intense experience."
Eun Sil Lee graduated from the Department of Korean Painting, Seoul National University in 2006 and received her master’s degree from the same institution in 2014. She was selected as a participating artist for the 29th Joongang Art Exhibition in 2007, ‘Young Korean Artists’ at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea in 2008, and ‘Art Spectrum 2014’ at the Leeum Museum of Art in 2014. In 2019, she received the Excellence Award at the 19th SONGEUN Art Award. Drawing from Korean painting, she addresses topics that clearly exist in daily life but are rarely spoken about, through her art.
rsunjun@fnnews.com Yoo Sun-joon Reporter