For his very first exhibition in France, Chinese artist Chen Jialing is presenting a collection of previously unseen paintings, ceramics and tapestries, some of which have been created especially for the occasion. The exhibition will run from 5 to 21 April at the Réfectoire des Cordeliers (Paris 6th arrondissement), a former 14th-century convent nestling in the heart of the Latin Quarter, which will be exceptionally open to the public for the duration of the show. The exhibition is free and open every day from 10am to 6pm.

Echoing the geography of Shanghai and Paris, two cities built on the banks of rivers (the Seine and the Huangpu), the exhibition takes the river as its theme. It features some forty previously unseen works by the artist, some produced in the late 1990s and most created for the exhibition. Polyptych paintings, ink paintings, calligraphies, silk thread tapestries and ceramic works of often spectacular dimensions take over the Cordeliers heritage site.

Born in 1937 in Tonglu, at the confluence of two rivers on the Yangtze, Chen Jialing studied at the China Academy of Art (Hangzhou), on the banks of the West Lake, before moving to Shanghai. Combining traditional culture with a spirit of modernity, these cities, built on the banks of rivers and lakes in the heart of the historic Jiangnan region, have had a profound influence on Chen Jialing. The artist explores his cultural heritage and reinvents traditional painting through his superimpositions of ink washes, combining formal beauty with modernist experimentation. Using ink and brush, Chen Jialing follows in the tradition of shanshui ("mountain and water"), a Chinese style of painting in which natural landscapes are painted with brush and ink. Chen Jialing is one of the most eminent representatives of the Shanghai School, a pictorial movement that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and profoundly modernised Chinese art.

"A Life by the River", the title of the exhibition devised by curators Cao Dan and He Jing, with scientific advice from Éric Lefebvre (Director of the Musée Cernuschi), evokes a life devoted entirely to ink painting and travel as a source of inspiration. "The good man loves mountains, the wise man loves water." Repeated for centuries by Chinese scholars and thinkers, this phrase from Confucius expresses the cultural meanings emanating from "water" and "mountains". In Chinese tradition, water is a metaphor for absolute beauty, for its fluidity and formlessness. It has subtle cultural meanings and has always been the ultimate aesthetic objective pursued by Chinese painters. Ink painting, a process that uses water as its central element, was born of such a vision of the world based on flux and change.

The exhibition introduces the "three transmutations of water, fire and silk" present in Chen Jialing's work. Ink paintings, ceramic works and silk thread tapestries occupy the monumental space of Les Cordeliers, designed by Pascal Rodriguez. The aesthetic of transformation is the very essence of Chinese art and thought. In "Water and Dreams", philosopher Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) evokes water as a living entity, echoing ancient Chinese thought. Mixing with ink to recreate the landscape, transporting people and cultures: water always evokes the ceaseless flow of life, the immaterial bearer of cultural and historical depth.

The exhibition is being held to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and China. Organised by the Shanghai International Culture Association, it presents the spectacular work of a contemporary figure from the Shanghai School for the first time in France, alongside Art Paris.