A documentary that reveals the creative process of acclaimed Chinese artist Cai Guoqiang was shown on June 17th in Beijing. Cai was the visual effects director for the Beijing Olympic Games. In recent years, the artist has returned to painting, currently exploring the use of gunpowder in his work. 

The documentary takes viewers on a journey through Cai Guoqiang's fascinating process of creating his works for the exhibition "The Spirit of Painting", which began at the Prado Museum last October. 

It is Cai's first solo exhibition solely focused on painting in over 30 years. He is the first contemporary artist to create on-site at the Prado. 

The 40-minute documentary was directed by Isabel Coixet, one of Spain’s most international filmmakers.  

After the film screen, Cai Guoqiang shared his experience in Prado with the viewers. 

"Each person may have different views towards my art. When I was leaving Prado, the most impressive thing was the staff, the viewers, even the guards came to say goodbye to me. We spent a good amount of time together and they gradually knew me, knew my art. Then I suddenly realized my work was recognized by them," said Cai. 

In the documentary, an intimate, moving tone and commentary by Cai himself explains his thoughts, research and experiments with gunpowder as a visual material.

Viewers can come to understand how the artist depicts the past into the present by reinterpreting both, and how he encounters all the secrets of his work from the purity of the colors, the smell of the gunpowder and the details of each painting shown in the film. 

"The documentary and my exhibition at Prado were both titled 'The Spirit of Painting', but I would like to say I am searching for the spirit of painting through my work. You know today many new technologies have been applied to make film and photography works, so I'm wondering if today's artists still have the same spirit as the old artists, the same creativity, the same inspiration like them. And this is what I was looking for at Prado," Cai Guoqiang added.

The documentary "The Spirit of Painting" premiered in January in Spain and will be screened in China starting this month.