Pink, a portrait of Spencer Sweeney by Elizabeth Peyton. [Photo provided to China Daily]

New York-based artist Spencer Sweeney is in Beijing on his debut visit but he's far from lonely.

He participated in the opening of the New York By Night exhibition in the Chinese capital on Friday.

The ongoing group show of works by him and 16 other artists based in New York at the HdM gallery displays paintings and installations by Sweeney and the other artists he met in the past two decades. The show presents the artists' ties to the city.

It's like a diary that gives people "a sense of the art community in New York, the energy and creativity", Sweeney says.

He has curated the show using his personal encounters in New York's art circle as the compass.

Elizabeth Peyton's portrait of Sweeney at the entrance of the Beijing show was drawn when they first met, when Sweeney was playing for a band. Peyton, who was a renowned painter by then, asked whether Sweeney could sit down for a portrait and later became friends with him.

Paintings by members of his art-rock band, Lizzie Bougatsos and Sadie Laska, together with Sweeney's, are placed on the walls at the exhibition. The band often gets invitations to perform on openings of art exhibitions.