Shi Jiangcheng First-class national artist and executive director of Chinese Painting Institute of Ministry of Culture
I'm not new to collaborative painting. I've been engaged in producing many large-scale works such as Yangtze River Miles Chart, Huang River Miles Chart and Silk Road Landscape. But the collaboration this time was different. We hadn't collaborated before, thus (were) unfamiliar with each other's artistic styles. Improvising within a short period made the collaboration even harder. But, thanks to the enthusiasm shared by all painters and our similar aesthetic values, we created a few great pieces of work. We adhered to the traditional Chinese techniques during the improvisation, but in the meantime we strived to present something that people from different countries or cultures can easily relate to.
