The changing Asian Temples, the splendid European castles, the primitive African grasslands, American geography in ancient and modern taste, and magnificent landscape in Oceania… the 142 paintings demonstrated the abundant variety distinct from local national artistic features. From September 23 till 26, “The World in Chinese Artists’ Eyes” exhibition, jointly sponsored by China Artists Association (CAA) and Yan-Huang Art Museum, was held in Yan-Huang Art Museum. 

The exhibits of this session come from the 142 paintings created in the two projects, namely The World Journey of Chinese Fine Arts and Young and Middle-aged Chinese Artists’ Overseas Research Project, involving many sub-disciplines such as traditional Chinese painting, oil painting and print as well as exotic expressions of the 41 countries in the five continents. As remarked in the preface of this exhibition by Liu Dawei, vice president of CFLAC and president of CAA, all the participant paintings are records of the creators’ abundant life experience and open vision for creation, and sense of mission and responsibility to tell others’ stories, which then leads to the double property of aesthetic appreciation and cultural diplomacy. In the meanwhile, with the expansion of vision, how to display the foreign Space Era under the precondition of inheriting traditions will become a brand new theme for Chinese artists to address when they conduct external manifest in the future. 

This year marks the 5th anniversary of those two projects of art exchange The World Journey of Chinese Fine Arts and Young and Middle-aged Chinese Artists’ Overseas Research Project, and this exhibition is a summary for improvement on CAA’s foreign affairs in the past five years. By organizing exhibitions continuously at important art galleries abroad and Chinese cultural centers, The World Journey of Chinese Fine Arts has not only demonstrated the attraction of Chinese contemporary arts effectively, but also formed an all-round and in-depth fine arts exchange circumstance with related countries. In the Young and Middle-aged Chinese Artists’ Overseas Research Project, scores of outstanding young and middle-aged artists of different provinces and ethnic groups have been subsidized to conduct overseas research and exchange, observe the international fine arts development and promote the related development of domestic fine arts cause. “Currently, it is already common to hold a personal exhibition abroad among Chinese painters. However, it hasn’t yet constituted a considerable scale, system and authority. Therefore, CAA put forward fine arts exchange included in the above two projects so as to realize the dialogue on an equal basis between Chinese fine arts and the outside world and bring the whole world to share Chinese fine arts by means of exchange, competition and integration.” Said Wu Changjiang, executive vice president of CAA.