Lin Feng's ink paintings mostly reveal the lives and culture of Chinese ethnic groups. Photo provided to China Daily

For the past 50 years, Chinese ink artist Lin Feng has lived in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The people and culture of the area has had a major impact on him.

Lin's show, Chinese Painting of Portraits, at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, displays 80 of his artworks based on people living in the northwestern region and in East China's Fujian province, his hometown.

The 77-year-old artist has spent most of his adult life in Xinjiang.

"I was inspired by the magnificent Tianshan Mountain, the Gobi Desert, the vast grasslands and the pastoral areas, especially the people living there," he says of the different Chinese landscapes that feature in his work.

Lin has sketched dancing Uygur women in colorful folk dresses and young men singing as they carry plates of grapes or melons on their heads.

Fan Di'an, president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, says that one can hear the music and feel the passion of dance from Lin's paintings.