Peak Perfection

Li Huayi's solo exhibition combines his love for landscapes with a mastery of both modern and traditional painting techniques. Deng Zhangyu reports.

Ink painter Li Huayi's landscape paintings appear to be a mix of traditional Chinese style and Western modernism, much like the Suzhou Museum - a building designed by Chinese-American architect I.M.Pei that fuses elements from both East and West - where the Shanghai native's solo show opened recently.

On display are 18 large landscape paintings - many are several meters long - that the 69-year-old has produced over the past decade. The exhibition, entitled Fantasies on Paper and Enchantments in Gold, includes many of the artist's iconic landscapes on paper and more recent works using gilded screens as a medium.