[Photo provided to China Daily]

Chongqing-based Japanese artist Kumi Usui's works endorse a belief that "my heart is the universe" — a declaration put forward by Song Dynasty (960-1279) philosopher Lu Jiuyuan.

Her solo exhibition, Ai Yo, is running at The Temple House's A Thousand Plateaus Art Space in Chengdu through Feb 28.

It shows her oil paintings and long-scroll ink works in which she explores the love and formation of lines as essential elements of her visual vocabulary.

The artworks communicate her thoughts on productivity, and the destruction of nature and the human world. Her paintings' shifting lines form patterns that hint at her inner self.

Usui graduated from the oil painting department at Tokyo Musashino Art University in 1992. She then studied at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing and has stayed in the city for over two decades since.