The respect for artists is higher in China, says Liu Kuo-sung, pioneer of Chinese modern art

At age 82, Liu Kuo-sung, known as the father of Chinese modern ink paintings and pioneer of Chinese modern art, has no intention of hanging up his brushes anytime soon.

"I paint every day at night," says the artist as we sit with his wife in the reception area at host gallery Galerie du Monde in Central.

Having just arrived from the airport during a downpour, I was impressed by how relaxed they look. "I don't travel as often as I used to," says the artist, whose works are respected worldwide. "In the past, I was invited to lecture at universities, such as Stanford, and have exhibitions in museums, but I don't travel there too much now."

Happy to be back in Hong Kong, where he was an art professor and dean at the faculty of art at Chinese University for 21 years until his retirement in the 1990s, the Taiwan-based artist still has a passion for teaching - he is chair professor at the National Taiwan Normal University in the department of fine arts, and Liu enjoys sharing his ideas with young artists.

Liu believes the city has become an international centre for the arts, especially after the arrival of prestigious international fairs such as Art Basel, but he says parents and society are still not so supportive of young people going into the arts field here.

"There are few Hong Kong artists as the city is still so commercial," he says. "Society [in Hong Kong] does not support artists so much. Parents still want their children to be professional." He adds that he was honoured in China for his contribution to the art world and says there is more respect for artists there, and more expression. "The respect for artists is higher in China," he says. "The government put a lot of effort in developing culture and the arts."

Although Liu admires some present artists, he is inspired by his favourite artists of the Song dynasty. "Song dynasty artists were modern for that period," he says. "They were the first abstract artists, 700 years earlier than the West."