Paintings of birds by Ye Yongqing. The artist says he uses birds as a metaphor for his understanding of current social circumstances.[Photo provided to China Daily]

He uses birds as a metaphor for his wandering ways. He divides time in his studios in Beijing, Kunming and Dali of Yunnan province, and Chongqing, and travels abroad extensively for various art projects.

By revisiting subjects he examines the relationship between himself and his surroundings.

"I paint birds. But my work is none of their business," Ye says.

"I don't care whether it is a magpie or blackbird. I'm not popularizing the birds."

At his solo exhibition now running in Beijing, Ye has dozens of paintings of birds, flowers and landscapes created over the past year.

The title of the exhibition, Gilded Age, refers to current social circumstances where people are superficial, restless and noisy, and an environment in which information is segmented and fractioned.

Ye places his subjects amid a glittering golden backdrop to enhance the motifs. He paints the birds in his signature scrawling style.

Ye has put two peacocks in the center of several paintings. He drew an ink scroll titled The Album of Peacocks, which is also on display at the event, documenting his stories when staying in his native Kunming from 1997 to 2004.

But Ye did not pull the peacocks out of thin air.

The two birds were with his neighbors when he started working at the Shanghe Guild, a contemporary artists' studio, in Kunming, in 1999.

The neighbors, an elderly couple, then got annoyed with the birds and gave them to him.