Painter builds bridge of cultural exchanges

Su has also published an album of paintings Sudan in My Eyes in Sudan showing how a Chinese artist sees the country. Book critics say the book has filled a vacancy in its field.

Compared with a painter with professional training, Su's artistic creation is full of randomness. Art critics say that Su's painting style is not something that can be cultivated in a traditional art school.

The publishing of Sudan in My Eyes was at first not part of Su's plan. When he was in Sudan, he liked finding scraps of paper and drawing whatever he saw on them:the wild grassland in the rainy season, the lions and the elephants by rivers. Until one day when his works were spotted by Dr Rashid Diab, a Sudanese modern painter, visual artist and art historian, who marveled at Su's creations, and encouraged him to continue to stick to his style and keep on drawing what he saw in Sudan. Su didn't expect that his sketches would finally be collected in the album, which reportedly caused a bit of a sensation in Sudan after it was published.

The media quoted Diab as saying of Su's paintings: Frankly, the most difficult relationship in a painting is the relationship between black and white. Under each line, the paper is being scored so it cannot lie. The layout and atmosphere need to be created. The fewer the lines, the more there is the need for ideas and planning. In that sense, Su's painting is closer to philosophical thinking.