Newman Huo

    RESIDENT artists have been painting contemporary cityscapes with the traditional Chinese medium of ink painting at the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute (SFAI) since 1986.

    Titled “A Newly Rising City and a Creative Art,” a joint art exhibition started simultaneously at the SFAI in Luohu District and the Universiade Village in Longgang District on Saturday, exhibiting more than 40 pieces of Shenzhen-themed urban landscape paintings the local fine art institute has collected over the past two decades.

    All of the original works are being displayed at the SFAI while their duplicates are at the Universiade Village.

    Among the paintings on display, audiences can see not only works by 13 SFAI resident painters, such as Song Chengde’s “Lianhua No. 2 Village” and “The Morning of Shenzhen,” Li Shinan’s “Shenzhen’s Rhythm” and “Scaffolds,” Zhou Kai’s “Shenzhen International Trade Center,” Yu Changjiang’s “Urban Girls,” but also works by nationally acclaimed painters, such as Tong Zhongtao’s “Shenzhen Diwang Mansion,” Jiang Baolin’s “Quiet Daya Bay,” and Li Xingjian’s “Sketches of Construction Sites.”

    In his painting “Splendor,” Dong Xiaoming, president of the SFAI, depicts Shenzhen’s cityscape at night with simple colors.

    Fu Zhongqi, one of SFAI’s resident painters depicts the old walls of the ancient Dapeng Fortress in Longgang District in his painting “Remote Memory,” which has been listed as one of the city’s top eight scenic spots.

    The SFAI was the first in the country to popularize the concept “metropolis ink painting.” In May 1992, the first exhibition “Shenzhen Painters Painting Shenzhen” organzied by the SFAI was held in the Shenzhen Grand Theater.

    In 1993, the People’s Daily published a whole page of urban landscape paintings by SFAI painters.

    After reading the page, Qian Xuesen, China’s leading nuclear physicist, wrote a letter to the Fine Arts, one of the country’s leading monthly art magazines in Beijing, praising the SFAI painters’ initiatives in urban landscape paintings.

    In 1995, a forum devoted to the art form saw the participation of more than 20 nationally acclaimed painters, such as Song Wenzhi, Tong Zhongtao, Xu Xi, Kong Zhongqi, Dong Xiaoming, and Li Shinan,

    In 1996, the SFAI held an urban landscape painting exhibition at the Shenzhen Museum in 1996 to showcase experimental works by painters from all over the country.

    In December 1998, the SFAI invited more than 30 leading artists from China and abroad to participate in the first international painting biennial in its new office building.

    The Seventh International Ink Painting Biennial of Shenzhen, which was held in the city in December 2010, attracted more than 140 artists from over 20 countries and regions exhibiting their works, and the biennial has become China’s premier event for contemporary cityscape painting.

    Dates: Through Aug. 25

    Add: Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, Yinhu Road, Luohu District (罗湖区银湖路深圳画院)

    Buses: 4, 5, 7, 201, 218, 222, 301, 315, 360. About five minutes walk from the Yinhu Bus Station.

    Add: Universiade Village, Longgang District (龙岗区大运村)