Xu Jiang's sunflowers are symbol of a lost generation

Sunflowers are all Chinese artist Xu Jiang paints these days. But unlike Vincent Van Gogh's blooms, Xu's sunflowers stand on autumn fields with their parched leaves curled up and heads drooping. Despite their upright stems, they convey an overall sense of loss and sadness.

"In these sunflowers, I see images of our generation, memories of our youth, and of what we have experienced collectively," says the 59-year-old artist.

"We used to wear the same clothes, sing the same songs, walk the same paths. We have a collective memory. Like these sun-facing flowers, we devoted our hearts to the sun when we were young and now we stand there like old soldiers with a sense of bitterness."

An exhibition of Xu's sunflower works - 50 oil paintings, 100 watercolours and sculptures in bronze and glass - is on at the National Museum of China in Beijing until November 8. A huge sculpture made of lead, titled Living Together - consisting of 1,600 sunflowers, each six to eight metres tall - stands near the main entrance, while the paintings and glass sculptures fill three exhibition halls on the second floor.

"This is the first comprehensive show of his sunflower works on the mainland," curator Gao Shiming says. The museum hopes to better present "the twists and turns in the life journey" of Xu's generation, he adds. "[They] experienced revolutionary fervour and post-revolutionary disillusion. They were involved in unprecedented social upheavals and ideological changes in Chinese history. His sunflowers are a visual presentation of this generation."

The exhibition, "Sunflowers of the East", is named after Xu's oil painting series of the same title. The Storm, his most recent work, has 140 dark-red sunflowers against a glowing background. "It implies growth, struggle, acceptance of fate and commitment amid social upheaval," the artist says of the work, which he will donate to the museum after the exhibition.