Ay Xiang is specialized in flower painting with traditional Chinese techniques. The works in which Ay Xiang excels in Suriname are  those  of local plants and birds in these techniques. Ay Xiang immigrated sixteen years ago from the Republic of China as an accomplished painter. Though his parents were manual laborers, who saw art as wasting time and money, he worked his way through four years of art school where he studied the four ages old Gongbi and Yibi technique, Chinese art history and the basics of the western oil and water paint technique.

The ancient style of Gongbi is realistic and always has more colors; Yibi tends to reflect impressions and is sometimes done in only one color, preferably black on white rice-paper. Ay Xiang has won two awards during his study, and the year after that a contest for painters under twenty three.  In Suriname Ay Xiang has done serial of lotus or bamboos in the many degrees of black and all of a sudden there’s a very colorful Surinamese bird painted flying through. The combination of Surinamese nature in ancient Chinese techniques continues to pleasantly surprise spectators.

*(Comprehension of article done by artist Kitling Tjon Pian Gi)