Brazilian diplomat: Art helps China and Brazil grow closer

Art and artists are building bridges between China and Brazil and bringing the two peoples together, a Brazilian diplomat said on Sunday.

Brazil and China can further cement the relationship "by becoming more curious about one another, by sharing our experiences and by discovering how much we have to learn from each other through cultures", said Winston Alexander Silva, deputy consul-general of Brazil in Shanghai.

He was speaking at the opening of an exhibition in Hangzhou, the capital city of East China's Zhejiang province.

The exhibition, held at the city's Winland Center, is entitled Toward Life: Three Decades of Lin Chenxi's Painting (1995-2026), showcasing over 67 works by Lin Chenxi, an associate professor at the China Academy of Art.

"Through his art, he is building cultural bridges between Brazil and China," Silva said of Lin.

Earlier this year, Lin's works were presented at the 16th Curitiba International Biennial, a major art platform in Brazil. Some have already been collected by the country's Oscar Niemeyer Museum, one of the largest art museums in Latin America.

"A Brazilian visitor standing before a Chinese painting may discover something unfamiliar — a different sensibility, a different artistic tradition, different way of looking at the world," Silva said.

"But that same visitor may also recognize something equally familiar — an emotion, a gesture, a face, a flower, a moment of silence — that combination of difference and recognition is one of the great powers of art," he added.

It is particularly appropriate as 2026 is the China-Brazil Year of Culture, offering artists, musicians, institutions and audiences in both countries the chance to meet and discover one another.

For Silva, there is another special connection behind the exhibition, as 2026 also marks the 25th anniversary of sister-city relations between Curitiba and Hangzhou.

"Curitiba is my hometown in Brazil and Hangzhou in many ways has become my city in China," he said.

"Today that connection becomes even more meaningful because art is bringing our two cities and our two countries together," he added.

The exhibition runs until Jan 3, 2027.