An exhibition featuring the works of famous Chinese oil painters is underway in Beijing until Aug 8.

The exhibition, under the theme of "Detachment", displays more than 40 of the newest works by seven representative Chinese realistic painters in Shixiang Space at the Giri Art Zone in Gaobeidian, eastern Beijing.

"'Distance' and 'detachment' are the key words of this exhibition," said Wang Luxiang, art critic and academic host of the exihibiton, as reported by Art China. "All realistic expressions of classicism have an aesthetic distance between artists and the world. Without this very distance, detachment doesn't exist, and freedom of art doesn't exist."

The seven artists--Xu Mangyao, Yang Feiyun, Guo Runwen, Leng Jun, Li Guijun, Zhu Chunlin and Chang Lei--have different styles and come from different areas of China, but still remain in close contact with one another.

Leng Jun, one of the exhibitors, often invites his painter friends to create works in his studio, and he records these scenes of creative painters in his art.

Li Guijun's works on display, mainly completed over the past three years, express the unique spiritual feelings of modern people through adolescent girls, birds, black cats and red roses.

Li Dajun, the founder of Shixiang Space, said, "Categories like realistic, figurative, representationism and abstraction are not enough to conclude and express oil painting art in China. We pay more attention to the personal status and unique value of artists, as an independent institution. Our function is to discover, present and introduce."