Artist Qiu Qijing and his artwork at the exhibition Photo: Courtesy of zhang guisen

A large-scale landscape art installation exhibition that focuses on the works of Chinese pioneering sculptor Qiu Qijing kicked off on Sunday in Beijing. 

The exhibition is likely to be particularly intriguing to lovers of sculpture and the artist work as it focuses on Qiu's contemporary sculptures and his expertise in jade carving over the past 20 years. 

This is the largest exhibition of Qiu's contemporary sculptures and jade and gemstone carvings in recent years. 

Artist Qiu Qijing and visitors at the exhibition Photo: Courtesy of zhang guisen

The highlight of the exhibition is an art collection that includes 60 sculptures that took the artist nine years to create. The sculptures were inspired by The Classic of Mountains and Rivers, also known as Shan Hai Jing, a Chinese literatury classic containing stories about mythical geography and strange creatures. 


The works revealed at the Sunday exhibition is also the very first artwork in China that interprets the classics through the lens of a landscape installation. In addition to the 60 works on display, the artist is continuing with a project that aims to create more than 400 sculptures of mythological creatures for this project.

Born in 1979 in Fuzhou, East China's Fujian Province, Qiu has been tightening his artistic bond with jade carving since he was 6 years old. In 2005, he graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and eventually grew into a modern sculptor who is known by the art world for his contemporary approach to the classic material of jade.