Chen Wenling: Creating a new spring by sculptures

Chen's representative works: the Red Memory series. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The show's curator, art historian Wang Mingxian, says Chen effectively blends humor and imagination to create pieces that can adapt to any display space, be it a bustling downtown shopping mall or a quiet art gallery.

One piece created specifically for the ongoing show is a ship.

He also incorporates wordplay into the piece, as The Ship of the Clean River shares the same Mandarin pronunciation as the name of his hometown, Qingxi, in East China's Fujian province.

He explains the concept behind the vessel: "There's a river in my hometown that's no longer clean. In fact, it's very dirty."

Chen's creative process is spontaneous－as seen by a wall of his Beijing studio.

He splashed ink on it one day when drunk. The next morning, he painted small human figures on the wall, transforming it into an interesting ink mural that won praise from many artists.

Chen studied traditional Chinese ink painting at college in Xiamen.