A visitor looks at Chimeric Landscape, an installation by Zheng, during the ongoing Hong Kong show.[Photo provided to China Daily]

"I found a different world, a different relationship, an energy and a form of language," he says.

The transition let him connect the two cultures.

"It is just like connecting the positive and negative poles of an electrode. The power it generates can light up everything so that people can feel and see the meaning of culture."

He then returned to ink art. And he has extended the power of ink from paper to video and installations.

Chimeric Landscape, a video installation at the Hong Kong show executed over 2014-15, explores the "whole cycle of living, entropy and regeneration" of ink.

He says for him, ink is not just a material but also a living body.

"It represents energy, light, space and movement. It is time. It has so many possibilities that it makes me think about the phenomenon and our perception."

As ink art evolves, Zheng believes it requires artists to devote their lives to exploring it further. And, he says people should no longer perceive ink art in the context of historical traditions because only by doing so "will we not get lost in the mist of certain doctrines or mannerisms".

If you go

10 am-6 pm, Monday to Friday; 11 am-5 pm on Saturday; through May 3.

Sotheby's Hong Kong Gallery, 5/F One Pacific Place, 88 Queensway.

852-2822-5566.