The ongoing exhibition at Beijing's Poly Art Museum showcases 80 works by Russian contemporary artist Lavrenty Bruni. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A celebrated Russian artist uses flowers, ballerinas to build bridges among cultures. Ren Qi and Pan Mengqi report.

On a 2-meter high, 5-meter wide canvas, flower petals are painted densely with thick oil colors. If you look at the painting from farther away, the petals－painted in different shades of blue－form an exquisite scene of waves on the sea.

The painting, entitled Flower Wave, is one of the best-known works by Russian contemporary artist Lavrenty Bruni.

Bruni's paintings are being exhibited in China for the first time through Friday. With the theme Ballet and Blossom: Road to China, the two-week exhibition at Beijing's Poly Art Museum is displaying around 80 of Bruni's works, including oil paintings, watercolors, charcoals and sketches.

"Art does not need to be translated because painting is a common language," George Zinoviev, minister-counselor at the Russian embassy, said at the opening ceremony.

"In recent years Russian art has become more popular in China," he says. "This exhibition can increase mutual understanding and strengthen the cultural basis of bilateral cooperation."

Zhang Xi, head of the Poly Arts Museum, agrees with Zinoviev, saying that art is a bridge linking Western and Asian culture.

"The theme 'Road to China' is in line with China's Belt and Road Initiative, which promotes cultural connection among Eurasian countries," he says.

Born into a family of artists, Bruni is the 19th generation of his family. The Brunis have been prominent in northern Italy and Switzerland since the 16th century.

Although he graduated from Moscow State Academic Art Institute, a prestigious art school in Russia, Bruni says the decisive stage of his career was when he attended private studio classes with well-known master of drawing Yunus Karimov, now a professor at a private academy of design and graphics in Hennef, Germany.