Pieces of traditional tables and chairs drift like fragments of an exploded satellite in artist Wang Huaiqing's painting.As a student of Wu Guanzhong, one of China's greatest modern artists, Wang is never overawed by Wu, although his teacher's influence is obvious.Wang is exhibiting 53 works at the Shanghai Art Museum.Born in Beijing in 1944, Wang enrolled in the middle school attached to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1959. Twenty years later, he furthered his studies at the Graduate School of the Central Academy of Fine Arts under the tutorship of master Wu and Zhang Ding."His master (Wu Guanzhong) once had taught people not to be afraid of Abstraction, for abstract beauty is all around us in nature, and indeed in the world that we have created for ourselves," says Zhang Qing, the curator.It's true. Wu had discovered the beauty of the white-walled and gray-tiled houses of the southern region in China, but it is Wang who takes the viewers inside these houses.The hosts are not at home, and leave the door open. So the artist takes the viewers to "wander round," through the courtyard, down the dark passages and peering into empty rooms."It is in the early 1990s that Wang created his superb series of paintings of interiors that combined a purely Chinese visual world with a feeling for abstract design," Zhang explains.Wang's works express his deep roots in Chinese culture, his perceptions of traditional China and its relationship with the modern world. Wang tries to express the essential wisdom of the Chinese people through the austere, unadorned traditional tables, chairs and stool of everyday use. Their simplicity, tensile strength and elegant patterns are clear.But they are shattered, hurled about. On the surface, Wang is ardently "deconstructing" tables and chairs by taking them apart, but he is actually searching for a way to set them free. In fact, he is able to "fix" the seemingly chaotic images of his exploded furniture into a kind of order.Some of the broken pieces of furniture spill off the canvas and onto the wall."Some of his artworks are so overwhelming that one is hard to think that they come out from a 80-meter-square studio," says Tim Lin, president of Lin & Keng Gallery. "But when these paintings are finally hung up at the exhibition hall on the museum's first floor, their visual effect is just daunting."Apart from the canvas, Wang shows a huge sculpture titled "Traces of Nature." The piece is two jointed black wood frames, each measuring 4.5 meters by 3.5 meters. The two jointed frames create a tension between regularity and irregularity, correctness and incorrectness in a limited space.About 1.5 meters from the bottom of the pieces there are several small holes on the sides of the frames, which were designed with the artist's awareness of the viewer's physical and psychological responses to this work.In order to see the light that comes through the holes, viewers need to bend over. Thus the experience of the viewers with this piece also becomes a process of discovery."The conscious and unconscious participation of the viewers is what makes a compelling and meaningful art piece," Zhang concludes.