About a hundred items, including paintings, installations and videos from Chinese American artist Chen Yuanchu are on display at the Today Art Gallery in Beijing. This is Chen's fourth solo exhibition in the Chinese Mainland.

In his seemingly poetic oil works, Chen Yuanchu expresses his concern over the conflict between the fragile environment and the insatiable human consumption of natural resources. For him, it's two "parallel worlds in discord".

The topic raised on the canvas is a very real issue in today's world. Human civilization, as rendered on Chen's canvas in skyscrapers and highways, are juxtaposed with the natural world of forests, mountains and animals.

Through subjects of almost conflicting nature, Chen suggests that the deterioration of Nature will inevitably lead to the extinction of all species.

Painter Chen Chuyuan said, “The art work has a strong background. An image of the philosopher Plato appeared, so did beauty. The beauty symbolizes the natural environment, which deteriorates with an excessive exploitation of the resources. Plato himself also contemplates the issue.”

The exhibition also includes a session when Chen invites all the guests to join him in signing a letter on environmental protection which will be sent to the president of every country in the world.

Chen began studying drawing as a child. He graduated from Kensington University in 1985 and earned a Master of Fine Art at New York University two years later.

Since moving to New York, Chen managed exhibitions for many Chinese artists. He established the Modern Chinese Artists Association, joined the East and West Artists Association and held his first solo exhibition.

Painter Chen Chuyuan said, “This installation has twenty layers. And each of the layers has a front and back side, making forty layers in all. The multi-layered installation suggests that human life is overlapping. It's a plural world.”

His works have travelled to the US states of Alaska, New Jersey, and North Carolina, as well as to Nanjing, Shanghai and Beijing of China.

Chen Yuanchu is now living and working in New York.