Retired teacher's works show inspiration of art

"It (painting) is out of my sincere love of art and life," Ma says. "It is happiness that one, in the different stages of lifetime, can find something he likes and wants to devote to by which he is able to reform himself."

She says picking up the brush has revitalized her, although she retired years ago. "Painting puts me into a state of forgetting who and where I am. It takes me to a garden of a variety of flowers in full bloom, to select the most beautiful ones among them."

Qiao Yinan, who heads the flower-and-bird genre department of the China National Academy of Painting, says the works show that Ma truly understands the depth and aesthetics of the flower-and-bird paintings as a popular category of classic Chinese art, and has set a good example of integrating art into daily life and public education.