What's on

Innocence and purity

I, Here, an exhibition at the Anjuke Art Center in Beijing, shows dozens of sculptural paintings Yan Bo made over the past eight years. The works burst with energy and color in a celebration of life, even though the artist experienced difficult times while creating them. The paintings introduce Yan's individual approach to art. He assembles wood boards of varying geometric shapes, wraps them with canvas and paints on them with a vigorous palette. His art reflects simplicity, enthusiasm and even the wild vigor of a child. The exhibition runs through Sept 21.

Anjuke Art Center, second floor, Four Seasons Hotel, 48 Liangmaqiao Lu, Chaoyang district, Beijing.

Theater of life

Figure paintings, as a category of classical Chinese painting, appeared much earlier than the iconic mountain-and-water and flower-and-bird genres. First appearing on pottery and in caves, then on silk and paper, figure paintings reached their peak during the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties. Fine examples include Figure, Dragon and Phoenix, a silk painting from the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) and Nyushi Zhen (admonitions of the instructress to the court ladies), a hand-scroll painting dated between the fifth and seventh centuries. The role of figure paintings was mainly educational to communicate morality and ethics. The rich traditions and evolution of classical figure paintings are navigated at an exhibition underway at Long Museum's West Bund space through Dec 12.On show are dozens of storytelling paintings by some 20 modern artists known for depicting figures and showing the interior lives of their subjects, inspired by fairy tales, historic events, classical literature and folk operas.

10 am-6 pm, Tuesday-Sunday, through Oct 31; 10 am-5:30 pm, Nov 1-March 31. 3398 Longteng Avenue, Xuhui district, Shanghai.021-6422-7636.

Experimental ceramics

More than 60 artworks by teachers of the School of Experimental Art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts are on show at Hand Feel, at Taoxichuan Art Museum in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, through Oct 23. The exhibition of paintings, sculptures, installations, performance art and videos navigates how artists explore the possibilities of presentation by combining ceramics and other materials and art forms. The city of Jingdezhen, hailed the "porcelain capital" in China for its centuries-old ceramic-making industry, has forged cooperative relations with the CAFA to introduce artists, shows and cultural projects to breathe new life into the ceramic culture. Lyu Pinchang, a CAFA professor of ceramic art, says the exhibition shows the creativity and imagination of the new generation of artists to redefine the qualities of ceramic, both as a material and the history and culture it is embedded with, adding the refreshing feel they have rendered to the ceramic also widens people's vision of the future even in times of uncertainty.

3-10 pm, Tuesday-Sunday. Building B9, Ceramic Art Avenue, 150 Xinchang West Road, Zhushan district, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province.

Mixed material

The Academy of Arts and Design at Tsinghua University is staging an online exhibition to present how artists in China and Uruguay can utilize various forms of material. The exhibition, titled Material Thinking, teams up 54 artists from the two countries who have worked with different materials throughout the years, such as paper, fiber, bamboo and objects used in daily life, exploring their limitations and boundaries and seeking possibilities to diversify the ways to create art. The highly expressive works on show will challenge people's preconceptions, pushing down the fences that stand between cultures and languages. People can tour the exhibition at international-material-art-study.org.