The National Art Museum of China is hosting the Eleventh National Art Exhibition, displaying recent Chinese contemporary artworks that won top accolades. The show runs until Feb 3.

The exhibition, initiated in 1949 and staged once every five years, is a veritable feast for art lovers in China. It's the biggest of its kind. A variety of fine artworks in 10 categories are awarded. These include Chinese ink painting, oil painting, engraving, sculpture, murals, watercolor and pastel drawings.

This year, some 630 art works were nominated from more than 1,500 entries around the country. Top awards are given to respective categories.

Li Jieping's oil painting, The Young Couple (pictured), won the gold for its genre - somewhat controversially, as it was considered too plain by many viewers. The artist, too, was surprised to have won and felt it was the work's matter-of-fact yet artistic style that helped him clinch the top award.

In the painting, a young Chinese couple, presumably migrant workers, are laying bricks. They turn back for a moment, as if to look at a camera lens.

The young man wears muddy worn-out sandals, loose shorts and a striped T-shirt, while the girl, in jeans and dirty tennis sneakers, is about to be yoked with two buckets of cement.

The scene conveys the drudgery and ceaseless toil migrant workers typically endure, highlighting the human element against the somber backdrop.

The green stripes on the husband's shirt evoke a sense of peacefulness rarely seen in artworks depicting migrant workers.

"My painting is based on what happens near my dwelling every day," says Li, who captures his surroundings as if through a camera lens.

"Once I met a group of migrant workers from Guizhou province building barracks. I asked them about their lives and work, and took hundreds of pictures of them. They did lead a rough existence and were often dogged by despair but believed in whatever they were doing."

Fan Di'an, director of the National Art Museum of China, says the young generation of artists in China is thriving. This can be seen in the works by even those who haven't won top awards.

Chen Yuping's wood print, Oh, Northeast, has been selected as a work of excellence.

If he were not a printmaker, Chen would probably have been a musical composer. At least that's the first impression received by viewers of his art works. His pieces are like a symphony, drawn with vivid colors.