"Shen Xiaotong's artistic career has traversed the 40-year evolution of China's contemporary art scene," said Xing Yu, curator of the artist's Beijing solo.

Quoting the Freudian theory of psychoanalysis, Xing highlighted that the artist's latest creation had departed from his early conceptual paintings rooted in the id, to the literati-style painting driven by the super-ego.

Shen's Beijing solo, titled Ink and Wash on Paper & Oil on Canvas – Shen Xiaotong's Painting Chapter 1, brings together 29 oils and ink paintings from the artist's recent practice.

"Shen's work strongly resonates with me because it speaks of the scholar's spirit in ancient China's wenrenhua (literati painting)," said Chen Suting, founder of Sukie Gallery.

Wenrenhua got its name because it was widely practiced by highly educated people – intellectuals and scholar-bureaucrats in ancient China. Devised by Wang Wei, a prominent poet and artist of the eighth century, and further developed by Su Dongpo, the lauded scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), the style values self-expression over literal representation.