Artist retells Wuhan's COVID-19 stories through paintings: media

BEIJING -- An artist who was once a volunteer in the central Chinese city of Wuhan during its 76-day lockdown due to COVID-19, has captured memories of people's fight against the virus with her paintings, US media reported Tuesday.

Yang Qian conveyed in her oil paintings more about the coronavirus -- moments of unity and resilience and pride in weathering the outbreak outshining those of fear and desperation, the Associated Press (AP) said.

Two days after lockdown began in her hometown of Wuhan, also the hardest-hit city of the coronavirus in China, she began her volunteer work, delivering protective clothing, masks, disinfectant, medicine, and other supplies around hospitals and taking on requests from residents and strangers.

Her first post-pandemic artwork, "Reception," grew out of the experience of accompanying a desperate pair -- a mother and daughter who had developed COVID-19 symptoms -- to a hospital in early February, and her second painting was inspired by a photograph of a worker disinfecting a hospital hallway.

An exhibition she organized last year at a gallery she runs brought together 23 artists with 60 pieces of artwork related to COVID-19, and was lauded by local media and residents as having "crystallized every touching moment of the pandemic," the media reported.

The artist is currently working on a wall-size aerial view of Wuhan under lockdown, with individual residents represented by black ink dots, as an expression of their unity in pulling through the crisis and unseen pain, the AP said.

"What I see is the unity of our city, our nation. I find that I am really very proud of being a Chinese," the AP quoted Yang as saying.