Ink painter Cui Zhenkuan captures the relationship between humans and nature with his unique brushstrokes, which is highlighted in his ongoing solo show in Beijing. Photo provided to China Daily

Cui Zhenkuan is still seeking change and innovation at the age of 80. With a career spanning more than six decades, the painter has committed himself to pushing the boundaries of ink art.

Through a solo exhibition, titled Tremendous Mountains in Silence, currently on at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, Cui is presenting his renewed engagement with ink and water－displaying dozens of mountain-and-water paintings and sketches, which boast of his relentless attempts to try to perfect bimo (brush and ink) techniques.

"I'm an aged man. But I haven't achieved maturity in painting," the veteran artist says.

"My brushwork isn't sophisticated and precise enough. There is room for improvement."

Experiment with ink

According to exhibition curator and art theorist Wang Lin, the title of Cui's show summarizes his art.

Cui captures the relationship between humans and nature with his brushstrokes, and shows how it has evolved over time, Wang says.

"One can feel the changes in Chinese society and the spiritual dimension the people have taken," Wang says of the mountain-and-water motif that has come to define Chinese art.

The exhibition shows Cui's obsession with executing jiaomo (dry ink) landscapes.

Ink painter Cui Zhenkuan captures the relationship between humans and nature with his unique brushstrokes, which is highlighted in his ongoing solo show in Beijing. Photo provided to China Daily

Jiaomo, a Chinese painting technique, requires artists to dip a dry brush into rather thick ink before starting to paint. But the lower moisture content impedes the easy flow of ink, making it difficult for an artist to wield the brush and control the ink and color pigments. The painting is often considered a niche category.

Cui, however, has found that jiaomo endows the ink-and-wash painting with a modern touch, and better expresses his emotions than other approaches, he says.

He was enlightened by and inherited the legacy of Huang Binhong (1865-1955), a great innovator of ink art, to form his own style of lining and dotting.

Cui's dense, wrinkled strokes on paper look like markings with an ax. He takes great delight in seeking a sense of freedom amid the intensive, forceful brushstrokes.

The artist also uses his brush as a force of calligraphy. His passion can partly be traced back to his childhood, when his family collected calligraphic rubbings on ancient stone tablets.

He has created an imposing visual art profile for himself by building up a distinctive palette.

He found that normal color pigments don't go well with thick ink strokes or blocks to generate a smooth, transparent effect.

So he mixed ink with gold and silver pigments－sometimes also adding red and blue－to produce a metal-like texture.

A native of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, Cui also sources inspiration from the Chang'an Painting School, which in the 1960s produced artists who extensively painted landscapes and people of that region, depicting everyday life.

Ink painter Cui Zhenkuan captures the relationship between humans and nature with his unique brushstrokes, which is highlighted in his ongoing solo show in Beijing. Photo provided to China Daily

Reaching out

Cui has spent years traveling and sketching in a bid to follow the school's motto－"one hand reaches out to the tradition, another hand reaches to real life".

Chinese painters used to create artworks based on subjective feelings, stressing pictorial imagery, rather than real-life issues, says Cui.

"When traditional Chinese paintings were transformed with a modern outlook, painters were forced to give up the seclusion of 'literati painting' and turn to the real world and the people living in it."

He portrays the magnificence of mountain stretches as well as the misty, picturesque villages in South China.

He says he doesn't want to limit his art to a certain geographical location.

Art theorist Liu Xiaochun say: "It wasn't until his 80s that Huang Binhong truly became a great master. Cui has just turned 80. It isn't too late (for his further evolution)."

If you go

9 am-5 pm, through Sunday. National Art Museum of China, 1 Wusi Street, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6400-1476.