Out of the shadows

Graffiti art was once an underground pursuit, practiced by artists in dark corners of the city, but as Chen Nan reports, the renegade artists are increasingly finding their work more accepted by the mainstream.

In loose jeans, armed with gas mask and a black backpack, Ye Shu walks into the woods next to Jingmi Lu, a road beside Beijing's airport expressway. He glances around making sure no one is watching before taking out the spray cans from his bag. For graffiti artists like Ye, the woods, stretched across 2 kilometers, are a perfect playground.

He will spend hours or even a whole day in these woods, spraying colors on the wall, admiring his work for a few seconds and taking photos of it. Ye, 30, has been doing this for nearly 10 years.