Huang Yong Ping's work Wu Zei (cuttlefish) is among the exhibits on show in Doha.

The Doha exhibition is Hu's debut show and his first trip abroad.

Hu's son says that his father has always loved handicrafts and describes his dad as being "unconventional and not a typical farmer".

But Hu begs to differ, saying: "Of course I'm still a farmer. I don't understand what contemporary art is. Making figurines is quite like farming－you have to work hard at it."

Cai finds in Hu a shared passion for art that blurs the divide between an amateur and a professional. He also detects a fighting spirit in the artists at the show to persist with their dreams.

As Cai says of the event: "The exhibition hall is not a shopping area. It should be the fighting ground for an artist."

He adds that artists should be like wild animals where the audience can see how they wrestle with themselves, dealing with their anxieties and loneliness while exploring their artistic impulses.