'Follow The Heart'

Iona Wall of Light Heat by Sean Scully (Photo: Courtesy of Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum)

Backs and Fronts by Sean Scully (Photo: Courtesy of Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum)

The Sean Scully hurricane, which first began with the British artist's first exhibition in China at the Shanghai Himalayas Museum last year, has now stormed into Beijing.

Opening at the Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum last Thursday as part of the 2015 UK-China Year of Cultural Exchange, the new exhibition, titled Follow The Heart: The Art of Sean Scully, revisits the abstract artist's career over the past 50 years. Featuring works ranging from oil, watercolor and pastel paintings to pencil drawings and photography, the exhibit also features a major new sculpture, China Piled Up, which was created specifically for the artist's current tour in China.

Exhibition curator Philip Dodd commented in a press release for the event that the exhibition "is designed to open a conversation. There is no better Western artist to take part in this conversation, since conversation is the heart of his work: conversation with the daily world around him; conversation with the traditions of art in the West, from Velaquez to Matisse, but also with cultural traditions from Asia. For 35 years he practiced karate with all its philosophical resonances. As such Zen is important to Sean Scully, as are books on the Tao and theoretical physics."

The artist's 1980s work Backs and Fronts as well as an 8-meter painting Night and Day will both be showcased at the exhibition, as will a film about the artist. A workshop between Sean Scully and CAFA students and lectures on abstract art will also be hosted at the museum.

The exhibition is set to run until April 23.