Born in Nanjing in 1958, Shen Qin entered the Jiangsu Institute of Chinese Painting in 1978 to study traditional painting and during the New Wave movement in the mid-1980s, became an influential ink artist alongside Gu Wenda. He serves as a resident artist at the Jiangsu Institute of Chinese Painting today following a career in graphic and cinematic production design.

For Shen, the practice of painting with ink is a state of mind. The use of muted, monochromatic palette is one of the most striking features of his work, depicting flowers, plants and still-life against the background of ponds, pavilions or imaginary spaces, broadly contoured with pared-down and minimalistic lines - scenes that reca...