[Photo provided to China Daily]

He was born in Sichuan province and went to Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, a mountainous city. In 1998, he went to Art University Kassel. His works back then were paintings, especially oil paintings. During his stay in Germany, he sought inspiration from traditional Chinese culture, like ink paintings and moved ahead in his career.

"From a distance I realized the beauty of my culture, where I truly belong. I read lots of books on traditional culture, such as Taoism and Buddhism," says Qiu of his turning back to ink from oil.

He drew everything in his film, which was a huge amount of work. In his latest show at Beijing's Boers-Li gallery, his sketchbooks and ink paintings for the film are being displayed.

The city he creates is also a combination of reality and imagination. It's not hard to find cities like Shanghai or Chongqing in his video. A train running through a tall building is from Chongqing while some of the skyscrapers are from Shanghai.

"The time of the world I created is unknown, maybe the future or maybe the apocalypse. It's all about magic realism," he says.

The 3-D ink animation is described by the artist as the keynote work in his career. While being a teacher with the design school of the East China Normal University in Shanghai, he says he will keep exploring this kind of art form and write science fiction in future as well as produce related installations and mixed media works.

If you go

Noon-6 pm through April 16; Boers-Li Gallery, 798 Art Zone, 2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing; 010-6432-2620