Wearing three flowers in hair and a jade ring around wrist, a Chinese lady is playing pipa, a traditional Chinese plucked string instrument, beside a quiet pond teeming with Lotus flowers.

A fisherwoman mother is helping his son walk in shallow waters from the fish boat to the shore in South China. A pavilion in Suzhou Garden is greeting its reflection in the tranquil pond.

These are the scenes from the painting exhibition, which opened at the well-known Hammer Galliers here on Monday night. With the theme "A Breeze from China," the painter, Chen Yiming, offers New Yorkers a pleasant and quiet world in the city with so many skyscrapers and so heavy traffic.

Here and there, some 40 paintings are all mirroring Chinese culture, which, to a large extent, remains mysterious to American viewers.

"As modern technology -- e-mail, fax, the global internet -- draws the world closer together, it creates a more dehumanized environment, replacing, in many instances, actual human interaction," said Ronald Pisano, a famous American scholar.

"Communication may be improved (certainly with regard to speed and efficiency), but emotional content -- the inflection of one's voice, the expression on one's face -- are sacrificed in the process," Pisano said.

Although not intended as a social commentary, the delicate figure paintings of Chen Yiming express this alienation. His art, which he clearly maintains is not intended to be narrative or symbolic, does invite interpretation and, most definitely, elicits an emotional response from the viewer.

His masterful technique is used to entice the viewer to take part in an emotional experience, rather than entertain or create a specific story of some sort.

"I want to give the viewer space to communicate with the painting -- to promote a personal exchange," Chen told Xinhua. "Each person will bring something different to the experience."

"Painting figures is the most difficult job," he said. "Just like you are setting your foot into a mine field, one careless step will lead you to nowhere."

"I have been working very hard to portray the inner world of the people in my paintings, trying to bring an unfinished story to my viewers," he said.

Although his paintings are generally large in scale and conception, the mood Chen creates is very personal. And, though the emotions he deals with are universal, they are at the same time limited in range -- serenity, introspection, nostalgia, reverie, or even sadness -- and the time frame, a mere interlude, is restricted as well.

Li Zhaoxing, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, told Xinhua, "I love these paintings, because they are telling Chinese stories."

"I am proud of Chen because he was nurtured by New China," Li said. "This exhibition is very helpful in promoting the Sino-US cultural and art exchange."

The former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, was also present at the opening ceremony. He voiced his appreciation of the paintings and said that he would find some more time to view the paintings a couple of days later.

Born in 1951 in Shanghai, east China, Chen has been working as both a peasant and a worker when he was young. After his training program at the Shanghai School of Fine Art, he enrolled himself into the Department of Oil Painting, Shanghai Drama College in 1979.

Chen was a teacher of fine art at Shanghai Light Industry College from 1979 to 1981, when he came to the United States.

In 1982, he made a successful debut with his paintings exhibition at the New York-based International Gallery. Since then, he gave a series of art displays in Shanghai, Paris, Singapore, Canada and some other Asian countries and regions.