A photography critic picks up the brush. Six canvases of the same character — 回, return — six variations of one sign.
The titles of Lee Gwangsu's six SAF works all begin with a single character. 回. To return, to turn, to come back.
All six are 60×45 cm. Same medium — acrylic on canvas. On repeated surfaces, only the interior lines and colors vary. And that repetition itself is the subject.
The Critic's Brush
Lee Gwangsu is a photography critic before he is a painter. Emeritus professor at Busan University of Foreign Studies; resident artist at the International Cultural Arts Exchange Institute. For someone who has long handled the principles of image in word and writing, standing before a canvas again is not simple. The act of looking and the act of drawing meet inside a single person's motion.
His work doesn't stack complex narrative. Rather, it empties. As 回 is itself already a complete structure, inside the surface sits another surface, and inside that another movement.
Taihu Art Museum, Dongshan State Guesthouse
In 2025, his works were collected twice in China.
- Korea–China International Plein-Air Exhibition — Taihu Art Museum, Wuxi
- Korea–China International Exchange Exhibition — Dongshan State Guesthouse Art Museum, Suzhou
Within a Korea–China artist-exchange platform, his painting was drawn into the scene of and exchange. The sense of image he built as a photography critic is now translated into the grammar of the brush and taking a place in museums of another country.
