Oil painter Pang Jun remembers that more than 60 years ago Luo Gongliu, his teacher at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, told him that many art critics in the West said that oil painting did not belong to China and that the Chinese could not produce good oil works.

And it ignited in Pang a strong desire to create a style of oil painting that would showcase Chinese culture.

In his career spanning nearly seven decades, Pang has always believed that the charm of oil painting does not lie in a change in theme, excellence of technique or a choice between figurative and abstract styles, but whether the palette can touch people.

Now, Pang, 83, shares his exploration with oil painting and his thoughts on art in a book, titled Pang Jun: Techniques and Creations of Oil Painting, recently released in Beijing.

The book also features more than 170 paintings and 17 sketches Pang produced between 1968 and 2018.

Pang was born into a family of artists: His father Pang Xunqin graduated from the prestigious Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and was one of the founders of the central academy of arts and design, now the Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University; while his mother Qiu Di studied painting in Japan and was one of China's first-generation women artists.

Pang inherited from his parents a passion for art and freedom. And he experimented further to build a palette of Eastern elegance and poetry.

Pang says his practice and knowledge of art originates from the extensive land of his homeland: He was born in Shanghai, lived in Beijing for years before moving to Hong Kong in 1980 and then Taipei in 1987.

"Above all, it (my art) is rooted in the inexhaustible Chinese culture of thousands of years."