Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m., now through June 30

Add: Shenzhen University Gallery, inside Shenzhen University (深圳大学美术馆)

How to get there: Enter Shenzhen University via the North Gate, and walk about five minutes. The art gallery is at the end of the entrance road

Metro: Luobao Line, Shenzhen University Station (深大站), Exit A2

    Luo Songsong, Helen Deng

    Deng.hneng@gmail.com

    CHINESE ink painters are known for their depictions of rolling hills, rivers, birds and flowers, but a new exhibit shows how the traditional techniques can be used to paint the deserts and wild landscapes of Africa.

    “Approaching Africa,” an exhibition of more than 60 paintings of Africa drawn by nine Shenzhen-based ink painters, is being held at Shenzhen University Gallery.

    The exhibition is the result of a three-year project run by Shenzhen Fine Arts Institute and supported by the Chinese Ministry of Culture. Under the project, nine artists from the institute visited the African continent between 2009 and 2012 to explore African culture.

    The artists include Dong Xiaoming, Song Chengde, Zheng Qiang, Yu Changjiang, Wang Lixing, Lu Jia, Hai Yansuqian, Yang Xiaoyang and Wen Zhenfei. They visited Benin, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.

    Yang, who toured Ethiopia in 2012, said the African continent presented a totally new culture to him.

    “Before my tour, my impression of Africa came only from books and TV. But after the tour, I began to understand the mysterious and fantastic African culture,” he said.

    His works at the exhibition reflect African influences through olive-shaped faces, bizarre eyes and slender necks in images reminiscent of African wood-carvings.

    Ink and brushes are the basic elements of traditional Chinese painting, which often reflects inland climate conditions in style, while African paintings use bright colors and bold lines to demonstrate the heat and contrasts of the continent.

    Inspired by a land of blazing sun and diverse local cultures, the painters created works that were different from their former styles. Though created in ink and other traditional Chinese media, the works at the exhibition express a dry, loud and mysterious style that is very different from the mild and melancholy styles influenced by temperate zones in inland China, showing the boundless range of ink painting.

    “Ink paintings in the new era are no longer restricted to certain forms. This trip was an artistic attempt to expand the range of ink paintings in expressiveness, inclusiveness and openness,” said Dong Xiaoming, who also is president of Shenzhen Fine Arts Institute.

    Dong, who is known for his multimedia experiments with ink painting, was able to expand the scope of his art even further in Africa. He said the continent’s glaring, dizzying light was the soul of changing powers in ink painting. He also changed the focus from lotus to portraits in his series “Sketches of Africa.”

    “Shenzhen plays an important role in the cultural exchanges between China and Africa. While the innovation of ink painting helps Sino-African cultural communications, the cultural exchanges also foster innovations in traditional ink painting,” Dong said.