Silent Mountains

Ma, now a senior editor at Xinhua News Agency who used to serve as an editor at China Daily in the early 90s, was born into an artist family in northern China's Hebei Province, near the Taihang Mountains.

His exposure to painting during his childhood was the very beginning of his love for art, Ma said, and the two years at China Daily, when he was in charge of the weekly Art and Exhibition page for the only-English paper in China in the early 90s, brought him to the world of art.

Though a son of local artist in Hebei, the time when he went to all the galleries and museums to cover art events in Beijing pushed him to learn Chinese painting.

"I have studied a lot of traditional Chinese paintings, but most of them were Wenrenhua paintings, very traditional, a kind of hide-away feeling paintings, but those by such contemporary masters like Wu Guanzhong, Ye Qianyu impressed me the most," said Ma.

"An artist is obliged to find out the spirit or soul of the nature, mountains and rivers. The soul of the nature, if artistically depicted, might give people different response. It is a question of choice for artists in landscape paintings," he said.

"In my case, I would like those high and powerful mountains, they might have the power to encourage people and entertain people, but it's not my small world, it's part of the great nature," he said.

"People might argue that I am no different from traditional landscape painters in the connection between man and nature, but I would say my painting is more realistic and more optimistic and encouraging."