Contemporary Chinese pieces shown in Athens

Let There Be Light by Lyu De'an.[Photo provided to China Daily]

A show of abstract art by 10 established Chinese artists opened on Wednesday at an art venue in Athens, after a tour of Italy.

The show offers residents of the ancient Greek city a peek into contemporary art in China and runs through Feb 20 as part of "Happy Spring Festival", a program of the Ministry of Culture for the coming Chinese Lunar New Year.

The group show displays some 40 works by Chinese abstract artists, including accomplished figures such as ShangYang, DingYi, QiuZhijie and Tan Ping.

"We don't offer ink paintings to Western viewers as we usually do to show our culture. Instead, we show our contemporary art, especially abstract art that's easy for them to understand," says the show's curator, Sun Lei.

Sun says the artists presented in the show are representative of China's abstract art. Some of them have big ticket sales at auction houses, too, as abstract is popular in the country's art circle.

He explains that underlying the abstract works displayed are Chinese traditions that emphasize the spirit of yi－a technique that draws an object not exactly the way it looks but the way the mind "sees" it.

For instance, Shang's works bear the connotations of traditional Chinese ink-and-wash paintings of landscapes, to explore the relationship between nature and people. Ding's Appearance of Crosses copies countless crosses in a certain order to show the rapid changes in China's big cities.

Another painter, Liang Quan, presents a series that uses tea leaves and collage to show Taoism.