Li says by smudging the stones, Meng evens out the differences between ordinary cobblestone and the Yuhua stone, a popular tourist souvenir.

"The act of smearing covers the glitter of the stones ... It is a metaphor that to nature, all stones are equal, and all lives are equal."

Meng's exhibition was made possible thanks to pledges by two cultural institutions in Beijing - the Today Art Museum and the Wang Shikuo Foundation - to support Chinese artists who have persisted for more than a decade.

To this end, they established the annual Wang Shikuo Award in 2016 in the name of Wang Shikuo (1911-73), a painter and professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

The award is given to artists aged between 30 and 45. And as part of the award, the works of candidates of the year and the winner of the previous session are exhibited.

And it also promotes to the general public that spirit of persistence held dear by Wang Shikuo, making them better understand of how hard an artist works.

Meng won the award last year. And his exhibition is being held along with a parallel one of this year's 12 nominations on the short list.

Gao Peng, the director of the Today Art Museum, says the award and the exhibitions are to provide a platform for those who are creative, thoughtful and yet whose works do not win instant recognition on the market.

He says this year's finalists embrace a more experimental spirit in a wide range of mediums and their works demonstrate a depth of thinking that addresses underlying problems in social development.