Brightening walls, muralists spread joy

By adding cultural dimension, duo aims to increase rural appreciation for art

A flying ship, a cat with a tree on its head, an auspicious dragon. As vivid wall paintings pop up in rural parts of Chongqing municipality and Yunnan province, the two volunteer painters behind them, who bring love and enrich cultural life in the countryside, have gone viral.

"We just wanted to do something to decorate buildings to give them new life," said 26-year-old Liu Zhicheng, the muralist-in-chief.

Liu has been a professional wall painter for five years and has spent the last two years in Chongqing. His business partner and assistant, 22-year-old Xu Fengkai, joined him in April last year.

In June, the duo spent their holidays in Anju township in Chongqing's Tongliang district. They noticed some old, unsightly walls and came up with the idea of staying longer to transform them, free of charge.

With the consent of residents, they painted seven murals: four on the walls of a factory and three on residential walls. Each took between two and four days to complete. Liu remembers an inquisitive but helpful village boy who followed them everywhere and would try to find them blank walls for their next mural.

When he heard they were leaving, the boy waited the whole morning outside their apartment to give them a present, a stone that he treasured greatly.