Signs and symbols on oracle bones and ancient Chinese bronze vessels, calligraphic characters on signature seals and stones, abstract displays of ink and colour splashes in Chinese paintings…. all these have been turned into components and integral parts in the paintings of Cha Guojun.Cha, a veteran Chinese-American painter, describes his paintings as his means of delineating stories of the mysticism of the East through the application of contemporary abstract art of the West. His paintings, strong and distinct in characteristics of their own, are universal yet organically eastern.The artist has lived, taught and painted in the United States for over twenty years. He is fluent in the artistic language of the west but his ethnic roots run deep. In recent years, Cha often returns to Shanghai to work and teaches a Master of Fine Art programme at the Shanghai University.Cha has gone through different stages in his artistic pursuit, starting off as a realism painter in Shanghai and progressed onto abstracts after moving to the United States in 1985. He has held numerous exhibitions around the world and hundreds of his works have been widely collected in the United States, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Europe.The paintings in Mystic World, which will be on show at Art Beatus Gallery in October, are embodiments of the symbols and techniques from both the east and the west manipulated and displayed at the will of the artist.