"Life is the source of inspiration." Today, we meet the legendary Chinese artist Huang Zhou, whose brush once gave voice to stories from China's southern shores.

They called him "the people's artist."

From women's militias to seaside villages, and even the animals he met, Huang Zhou's brush captured life in motion, brimming with joy and struggle. Marking the centenary of his birth, a major retrospective has opened, attracting crowds in the thousands. We followed Huang's daughter, Liang Ying, through the exhibition, memories vivid as ever, often bringing a smile to her face.

"He loved life – wherever he went, he fell in love with it," Liang said.

In just 72 years, how much artistic energy can a person release? Huang Zhou gave us an extraordinary answer.

Born in 1925 in a village in Hebei, he would go on to travel far and wide – through Xinjiang, Fujian, and to the South China Sea.

The South China Sea, one of China's four major seas, is the country's largest offshore area – and Huang Zhou's lifelong source of inspiration.

He first traveled there in 1962, at the age of 37, and would return five times, to sketch frontline life during defensive battles in the Xisha Islands, and later as a cultural envoy of the PLA Political Department. From Hainan to the Xisha Islands, he painted navy sailors, coastal life, leaving behind hundreds of sketches and photos – a living visual archive of his era.

"There was a militia member who had participated in the Xisha defense battle. My father had sketched him. His child came across the sketch in one of our books and said, 'This is my father.' It was really touching," Liang said.

"This exhibition highlights Huang Zhou's many roles, that of a soldier, a husband, a father, a collector, and a key promoter of China's fine arts industry," said Wu Hongliang, the president of Beijing Fine Art Academy.

Huang was also one of the founding members of the China National Academy of Painting, and the founder of Yan Huang Art Museum.

From the waves of the Xisha Islands to the shores of Hainan, Huang Zhou brought images of the South China Sea to life – a memory captured in ink, recorded in art. With a brush in hand, he left behind memories that will never fade.