The show Three Men Exhibition is now running at N3 Gallery in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The opening exhibition of N3 Gallery, on a quiet street deep in Beijing's 798 Art Zone, is as simple and straightforward as its title, Three Men Exhibition.

It shows dozens of works of three devoted painters: Xia Xiaowan and Ma Ke, both based in Beijing, and Mao Yan from Nanjing, eastern Jiangsu province.

Curator Cui Cancan says the exhibition is not intended to make a strong point: It's to be a sample of the periodic progress of the artists and is far from showing the artists' work overall.

He says the exhibition is to give viewers the sheer pleasure of appreciating a painting in peace and forgetting all the buzz outside.

"The paintings look vivid but cost their creators a lot of time to achieve perfection. They show a born gift and also, years of efforts to accurately present the fleeting inspirations," he says.