Like classical ink painting, there are plain spaces and some calligraphy but his use of colour and subject matter make Wang’s creations decidedly contemporary, something that might rile traditionalists.

‘I look at it like this. I’m Chinese, therefore my language is Chinese art, but my concerns are international, universal. It’s about making the style relevant.’

Chinese ink painting is one of the longest-running artistic traditions on earth. The brush strokes conjuring figurative scenes, often mountains and river valleys, were typically produced by the governing literati. The form’s creative zenith came during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Western pre-eminence from the 18th century onwards, however, precipitated ink’s decline as Chinese artists gradually took up oil painting and other modes of modern expression. Ink painting was relegated to the status of guohua, or national painting, and imprisoned by the rigours of tradition.

Initially the artists of Songzhuang shunned traditional Chinese arts. Ink painting was relegated to calligraphers and landscape painters content to work within the parameters of tradition. However, in recent years a number of Songzhuang artists have taken up the ink brush with the intention of modernising the form, blending classical and contemporary as a present-day commentary. Some works are satirical, some abstract, but all share the same aim of bringing ink out of the art history books.

Wang relocated to Songzhuang from Beijing’s 798 Art District in 2012. ‘I’m from the Yangtze River Basin originally, an area that was long a bastion of the arts, particularly ink painting. It’s only in recent times that artists have headed north,’ he says over lunch. Wang has evidently done well for himself in the capital, as his sizeable home shows. But his demeanour is down-to-earth, and he remains, like most Songzhuang artists, something of an oddball. During our meeting he sports a red seafarer’s cap.