WANG CHUAN, 53, visiting artist at the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, believes his experience with stomach cancer has given him the inspiration for his most recent paintings.

Wang ascribed his new artistic development to breakthroughs in his spiritual well-being. He says he used painting as a means of focusing his spirit and curing himself.

About 40 abstract paintings, done by the artist during the past two years, are on display at the OCT Contemporary Art Terminal through July 18.

The works can be divided into two groups. One group expresses the artist's reactions and insight when observing the universe, his feelings for the ocean's light and the darkness.

The second group is about the artist's response to life's challenges, a mixture of estrangement and rebellion against reality as well as hopeless entanglement and intimacy with this same world.

"I watched Wang paint some of his works in his studio at the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute during the past two years," Dong Xiaoming, chairman of Shenzhen Federation of Literary and Arts Circles and honorary president of the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, said at the exhibition's opening ceremony Monday.

"Viewing these abstract paintings again today, I'm still trying my best to understand their enigmatic beauty and profound meaning," Dong said.

For nearly 20 years, Wang has been devoted to abstract painting and is one of China's leaders in the genre.

Born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, in 1953, Wang began to achieve recognition with his realistic oil paintings in the movement called "scar painting" and "art of the wounded" in the late 1970s.

In the early 1980s, he started to create experimental paintings that reflected his passion for philosophical and existential questions.

In 1984, Wang moved to the newly developed Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. In 1997, he settled in New York as a permanent resident.

In 1998, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer and was operated on in a hospital in Sichuan Province.

From 2002 to 2004, Wang lived in solitude in a small fishing village on the outskirts of Shenzhen.

He was deeply moved by the sublime beauty of the sea and spent almost every day by the seashore.

"Every morning, after waking up, I would sit on my bed facing the sea and take a deep breath and thank the creator for granting me another beautiful day," Wang recalled.

"In contemplation of impermanence and death, I was filled with gratification for life and the sea while realizing the frailty of human existence," he said.

"Be mindful and grateful for every moment of life. This is what I learnt from the sea," he said.

Wang's recent paintings have truly become the records of a meditative life. Having been near death, Wang's simple gestures, such as tracing a brush mark across a canvas, shine with the preciousness of life. Wang's art enhances the richness of everyday experience by turning fleeting moments into landscapes of the mind.

Editor: Wing