Chinese artists pursue professional careers, looking to collaborate with counterparts in other countries.

People taking a stroll along-side the canal in the Yuan Dadu City Wall Ruins Park in northern Beijing may be surprised to come across graffiti written in Roman script adorning some walls.

Graffiti can also be found on walls in the city's old Shuangjing neighborhood, the Wangjing section of Jingmi Road, the 798 Art District and the downtown Gulou area.

Once an underground pursuit practiced in dark corners, this street art has become more accepted by mainstream society nationwide and is being promoted by fashion and design retailers who want to connect with the younger generation.

More Chinese artists are pursuing professional careers in graffiti and are looking to collaborate with their counterparts in other countries.

Early this month in Chongqing, Zheng Haidong, 32, - his face masked - stood atop a scissor elevator in hot weather for more than 14 hours a day holding a can of spray paint. He spent much of the time painting a tiger on a wall.

Zheng was part of a team competing in a graffiti contest. Each of the 10 teams was tasked with painting a 12-m-high, 7.5-m-long wall in the city in two days, with the winners receiving 60,000 yuan ($8,940).

"The work was very intensive," said Zheng, who is better known as "Smk" among street artists.

The theme for the second Joy In Bottle International Graffiti Competition in Chongqing from April 4 to 7 was bashi, which in the dialect of neighboring Sichuan province means a feeling of being comfortable, happy and at leisure. Zheng and other competitors had to convey that impression through their artwork.

The large amount of space given to street artists in Chongqing stands in stark contrast to Zheng's experience when he started out years ago in Ningbo, Zhejiang province.

He and his team, Tryken Crew, used to search the streets to find walls to paint on, usually those of shops, not private homes. Sometimes chengguan (urban patrol officers) and shop owners would visit them together.

"We would explain to them what we were doing, and we would remove the art immediately. They usually understood our intentions, and we also understood that it was their duty to tell us to erase our work," he said.

Now housed in a studio in a culture park in Ningbo, they can paint on nearly all the walls after asking permission from the park management.

Graffiti created without approval is not allowed in Chinese cities. When discovered, such work is often erased by cleaning crews. But in some areas, such as cultural parks, creative zones and entertainment districts, a growing tolerance toward graffiti is emerging.

First appearance

Finding a wall on which to work is the first step for a graffiti artist. For 10 years, Chen Yang, 27, from Jiaxing, Zhejiang, has ridden his electric bicycle around the city to locate suitable sites.

He prefers abandoned buildings awaiting demolition. Sometimes, he paints over an existing work, declaring such an act a "declaration of war".

"If you think others' work is not good enough, you can cover it with your own painting, but you need to do a better job. You need to think hard, and your art has to be more creative. The competitive element is the fun part of street art," he said.

Ye Shu, a Beijing street artist, said graffiti first appeared in the city at the end of the 1990s. In 2010, he and his team, Abs, started to paint graffiti on walls along Jingmi Road in Chaoyang district.

The walls along the road, which extend for more than 1 kilometer, are now almost all covered with colorful and funky graffiti works. The team's work can also be found in Chaoyang's 22 Art District, a new graffiti hotspot.

In 2017, walls along Jiulongshan road in this art district were painted by street artists from around the world.

The 798 Art District, a popular area showcasing contemporary Chinese art, is also home to graffiti. Ye said street artists have to ask the management team for permission before painting on the walls in the zone.

Writing and drawing are major forms of graffiti. Artists write letters and words with spray paint, while drawing is aimed at creating patterns. There is also commercial graffiti, with artists being paid by companies to create work for them.

Some brands who want to connect with the younger generation invite graffiti artists to work on designs for them. Zheng's team decided to form a company at the end of 2016 to take commissions from brands.

All four members of the team are married and have children. "We need to take responsibility for our families, and our graffiti skills help us to design works that showcase our strengths in painting about traditional Chinese culture," said Zheng, who is the company's CEO.

The four have been creating graffiti since they graduated from college.

They take a two-month break from design work every year, devoting themselves to creating graffiti on the streets instead. Last year, they staged the Golden Flow graffiti contest in Ningbo for new street artists, which attracted a dozen groups from China and about 30 from other parts of Asia.

Using the profits they made from running the company, they declined sponsorship for the contest, enabling the event to represent "pure street art".

Zheng said, "When organizing the competition, we encountered many surprises, but they were all good ones, such as the help we received from a hotel and a mall that provided the venue."

Other cities have made approaches to stage the contest, but the team has rejected them.

"Graffiti is the love of our lives and has brought us a lot. We just want to do something in return," Zheng said.

"My parents didn't want me to be a street artist, but they have gradually accepted what I do and sometimes they feel proud of the street art that I paint."

Chen, from Jiaxing, founded his own studio in the city in 2017, taking orders to paint walls for clients such as restaurants or bars nationwide. He also works as an illustrator.

"Graffiti teaches me to think freely, and I want to try to combine it with an art installation or toys," he said.

Chen added that he wished there was a market for street artists' work that would enable them to support themselves.

"We don't have a mature system to sell works of graffiti, or enough agents to connect the artists with galleries. Cultivating the street art market to attract more people to take part in graffiti work would make for a sustainable ecosystem," he said.

Ye, the Beijing street artist, sold a two-square-meter graffiti work for 20,000 yuan. "It's not a deal that you can strike often," he said.

In 2011, Ye's team, founded in 2007, won the Wall Lords graffiti contest in Chengdu, Sichuan. In 2012, it launched its own spray paint store in the 798 Art District in Beijing.

Spray paints are imported and sell for about 40 yuan a can. Since 2012, China has had its own brand of professional paints, which are half the price of imported products. The country's paints are now available in Europe and have become popular there, Ye said.

The name of the team's shop is"400ml", which refers to the volume of a regular spray paint can. Ye said the shop makes little profit and the team takes commercial graffiti commissions to make a living and to run the business. It has collaborated with many major sports, fashion and car brands to design graphics, clothing and sneakers.

Ye said that about two years ago he noticed that graffiti contests were being staged in many cities, but most of them were hosted by retail brands or real estate companies. "Recently, the number of events has fallen, but the quality has risen," he added.

Trip to Germany

Street artists are becoming more connected with their colleagues elsewhere in the world.

In February last year, Ye and his team helped organize the JOYBO Street Art Festival in Chongqing. The winning team was rewarded with a 12-day graffiti trip to Germany in March last year.

Nine Chinese artists traveled to Germany, where they took part in the Berlin Mural Fest and painted a 50-m-long, 5-m-high mural together with local street artists.

In February, Chen, from Jiaxing, joined the POW!WOW! Festival in Hawaii, a weeklong event that included gallery shows, lectures, schools for art and music, and mural projects. He spent two days painting a Chinese god of longevity at the festival.

The event was held during Spring Festival, so Chen wanted his work to express "best wishes" by blending traditional Chinese culture with a modern art form.

In Hong Kong, the influential street art festival HKWalls is staged every year in March and attracts many local and international artists to create graffiti on street walls. There are also pop-up exhibitions and workshops.

In Shanghai, Yu Yanyan, a graffiti artist and co-founder of the CAPITALL-Shanghai Graffiti Shop, set up an Instagram account in 2017, on which she exhibits interesting street art works by Chinese artists.

In January, her shop co-hosted an international graffiti sketch exhibition, presenting more than 300 works from 77 artists from around the world.

Yu said more graffiti events and festivals are being held in China. "I have a friend who collects posters of graffiti events in China. Last year, he collected more than 200," she said.

Her shop is working with the local neighborhood committee on the possibility of staging an international public art event.

Yu hopes more people will accept street art and see it as a part of their neighborhood.

She was once invited to create works in Queretaro, Mexico. "People in the neighborhood were so nice to us that they brought us water and snacks. It felt as if we were a community together," she said.