ChoulGyu Lee
In his modern work, an outstanding attribute is noticed. It’s a combination of gold and Han Ji (traditional Korean paper). It’s natural that a Korean painter would use Hanji. However, it is also rare that the painter uses the gold itself in his works, not the gold color with gold dust. Through this method, artist Lee Cheol-gyu has been actively using two uncommon techniques to his work: Gae Keum (repainting of gold) and Keum Bak (gilding), which he happened to learn while on a temple tour. Gold, representing the eternal and precious value, has functioned as a means to expel the devil and ghost from old times. It has a meaning of worship too. In addition, gold represents the mammonism as a symbol of wealth and greed. In his works, Lee Cheol-gyu uses gold to represent both meanings discussed in this paragraph, namely, representing eternal value and a symbol of wealth and greed. So the intention of shortening the spatio-temporal distance through a medium is to exchange information between speaker and listener and to establish the possibility of communication. In the case of Lee Cheol-gyu, communication happens through the medium of ‚gold‘.