Zhang Xiaochuan paints striking portraits of Tibetan and Hui people as well as migrant workers and the struggling people he has met during his years of travel around China."It was my dream to travel," he says. "I always want the feeling of being 'on the road'." He calls travel "an uncontrollable urge".An exhibition featuring Zhang's canvases is running at the Peninsula Art Center.Born in 1965, Zhang graduated from the Ningxia Academy of Fine Art. But after two years of stable and comfortable living, he decided life on the road was better.During almost 10 years of travel and frequent hardships, Zhang says he gained inspiration and enlightenment towards life and art.He quotes American poet Elizabeth Bishop as saying that we travel for lack of imagination, "and this leads us to this place full of dreams."The artist focuses on people who are struggling for a living at the bottom of the society, some in the countryside, some in the cities where they have migrated."They leave their hometown in search for a better life," he says of migrant workers. "But the medical care, housing and many other troubles make it hard for them to adapt to a new life in the city. The reality is that the city residents don't appreciate their hard work, and instead treat them as the inferior class."