Bridge of life

An artist's new show captures his spirited journey from Yichun to Beijing. Lin Qi reports.

Although he didn't attend a fine-arts college, Wang Mai, 45, was one of the youngest artists who participated in the emergence of Chinese contemporary art in the early 1990s.

Wang came to Beijing in 1990 after finishing high school in Heilongjiang province. He studied in a training class in preparation for the prominent Central Academy of Fine Arts' entrance exams.