Conveying the power of nature through paintings

AS a teenager growing up in a village near the Changbaishan mountains lining the border between China and North Korea, Liu Guo would take off for weeks at a time, getting lost in the woods and surviving on ants and mushrooms.

He learned these skills from watching the wildlife, says the artist who found success with detailed, exquisite renderings of his beloved mountains. "If the bears could eat them and not die, then I could do it too," says the 57-year-old who is now based in Singapore.

From now till next month, more than 20 of his paintings are on show at The Fullerton Hotel, in a solo exhibition titled The Pulse of Nature. Another 10 paintings are displayed at the Asia Art Collective on Tanglin Road. The paintings are priced from $8,800 to $38,000, with 15 per cent of the proceeds going to the Singapore General Hospital's Needy Patients Fund.