Collage artist Michael Chow puts it together

Michael Chow dabbed oil pigments and cracked eggs on his works, to capture his visions of pollution, wars and bomb explosions, among other problems of human society.[Photo provided to China Daily]

"My life is like a film. I'd been sick since I was born. Thus I was spoiled and weak."

At the age of 12, he was sent alone to a boarding school in Britain.

"I lost everything familiar and dear to me - culture, parents," he speaks in half English and half Mandarin with his native Shanghai accent. "It created a void somewhere inside me and all my life, I've wanted to fill that hole."

He resorted to painting after graduating from Central Saint Martins in the 1960s. But the London art world then wasn't supportive of a Chinese artist, he says, and Chow had to turn to another medium of art for a living - though he had not given up on being creative.

"I designed architecture. I was an actor - if not very successful - taking part in 16 films. And for 47 years, I'd spilled my blood, sweat and guts to present the best Chinese restaurant experience and bring out the artistry of Chinese cuisine.

"It's fate that has brought me back to painting, which is one of the most sensitive, true to the time and noblest professions."

Chow attempts to achieve in his works a harmony between himself and nature, which is essential to the spirit of Chinese art. Chow says he has the DNA of an expressionist. His father, an expressionist on stage, was once looked down upon because his profession as an opera performer was low in the social hierarchy, but Zhou Xinfang kept inspiring him and giving him confidence. His mother, who was a quarter Scottish, attained all kinds of social skills to make herself notable in a society that didn't quite accept her.