Artist paints a picture of hope

Another highlight of the exhibition was a painting Shen created in 2009 called Resuscitation, just a year after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province, after he paid a visit to Yingxiu town, the epicenter of the earthquake. He saw the destruction, and the temporary sheds where people who lost their houses lived.

"Even under such circumstances, people had to restore their hometown and resume production. Their toughness touched me. And I also saw efforts to help offered by other places, which made me realize the influence of solidarity and helping each other," says Shen.

He used a line-drawing technique in order not to make the scene depressive, and depicted many details he witnessed there, like a giant stone with the words Yingxiu on it. It had rolled down from a mountain that collapsed during the earthquake, and has been kept there and become a symbolic guidepost.

The disastrous earthquake offered the painter a different chance to observe the collapsed landscape. "Collapsed landform is a kind of landscape that painters try to depict in their works. But most painters would see such a landform with their own eyes after the mountains had been flattened for many years. The earthquake, however, offered a chance for me to see it not long after it happened," says Shen.

But his paintings are not necessarily true-life depictions." When you see a landscape painting, you can immediately know what the place is, but if you go to the place, you cannot find exactly the same landscape. That is the requirement for traditional Chinese landscape paintings. So what you see on the painting is the secondary nature that comes from the heart of the painter.

"It requires the painter to be very familiar with the place. After repeated observation, thinking and sketching, you can store it in your heart, and when you draw, it naturally flows from your brush," says Shen.

He also mentions that when he paints, his emotions play a major part. "Inspired by nature, you'll have a burning desire to draw. You must be passionate about that. If you are not excited, your paintings will not touch the viewers either," he says.