A ONE-MAN dialogue between contemporary printmaking and traditional painting, time-honored culture and modern civilization, Ying Tianqi's works are on exhibit at Guanlan Art Gallery in Bao'an District through Saturday (Feb 11).

The exhibit is part of a series of "Dialogue with Guanlan" activities in Guanlan that started in January, examining civilization and tradition. The series has taken on the challenge of comparing Xidi Village in Anhui Province, Guanlan Township in Shenzhen and Pompei in Rome as the three historic sites that ground an examination of tradition and modernity, East and West, commerce and art.

Ying's 35 prints completed 12 years ago and 34 traditional Chinese paintings from last year concentrate on Xidi Village, a well-preserved centuries-old village. "Ying's works remind us of traditional culture and modernity," a review in the Shenzhen Economic Daily said Friday. "The exhibition at Guanlan Art Gallery enables people to compare Xidi Village with ancestral Hakka buildings in Guanlan Township in a 'Dialogue with Guanlan.'"

The newspaper found Ying's elegant and poetic prints speak to the damage done by the impact of modern civilization on traditional culture. In Ying's eyes, Xidi Village represents reality and the ideal, homestead and wasteland, an opening and a closing.

As to Ying's paintings, the newspaper found them "gentle and fragrant, close to rural landscape." "The meaning conveyed by paintings is not as heavy as prints," said Ying, "so those works are only my personal memory of Anhui." If the exhibition is a dialogue between Xidi and Guanlan, it can also be regarded as a dialogue between painting and printmaking.

A professor at Shenzhen University, Ying is an influential explorer in the field of modern art. The 56-year-old artist is renowned for his Xidi Village series and regarded as an expert in folklore. In 1986, Ying came upon Xidi Village and spent eight years there.

Ying's photographs and videos of ancestral Hakka buildings in Guanlan Township are also part of the "Dialogue with Guanlan."

Editor: Wing