"If President Toledo can keep his promise, he will become the second head of state from the Latin American region to personally unveil my work," said Yuan Xikun, a Beijing-based Chinese artist and sculptor who recently completed a bronze statue of Tupac Amaru, the last emperor of the Inca Empire.

The new statue is expected to be put on exhibition in the Jintai Art Museum in the Chaoyang Park in eastern Beijing as "a symbol of the vicissitudes the South America Continent had undergone", said Yuan.

According to the 61-year-old artist, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo had agreed to unveil the statue during his scheduled visit to China this year, something his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez had done in 2004.

During his yearend visit to China, President Chavez went to the Jintai Art Museum to unveil and present flowers to a bust statue Yuan had sculpted for Simon Bolivar, known as the liberator and founding father of the Latin American nations.

"President Chavez was deeply impressed by my work, which he said not only made a lifelike presentation of Bolivar's appearance, but also revealed the hero's inner spirit," recalled Yuan. "The president also asked me to make another statue featuring Bolivar holding a sword on horseback."

Born in 1944 in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Yuan used to be a successful painter and was reputed as a "portrait messenger" for the more than 160 portraits he had painted for political VIPs and social celebrities worldwide since 1991.

The big names he painted for in the past 14 years included former president of the International Olympic Committee Juan Antonie Samaranch, Cuban President Fidel Castro, US President Bill Clinton, former UN Secretary General Butros Brtros-Ghali and South African President Nelson Mandela.

Starting from 2002, Yuan has engaged himself in the making of statues of important historical figures, taking a special interest in the national heroes of the Latin America region.

"I admire these Latin American heroes from the bottom of my heart. They had dedicated their lives to the freedom and welfare of the Latin American people, and they possessed the virtues long respected in the Chinese culture," explained Yuan.

Apart from the statues of Simon Bolivar and Tupac Amaru, Yuan also sculpted Cuban national hero Jose Marti. He also accepted the request of the Argentine Embassy in China to sculpt a statue of General San Martin.

In recent years, Yuan had picked the Jintai Art Museum as the main site to display his works. For him, the museum was also a perfect place to facilitate cultural exchanges between China and Latin America.

Thanks to the joint efforts of Yuan and diplomatic envoys from the Latin American countries, the museum played host to a "Colombian cultural week" in December 2002. In December 2004, an exhibition of Peruvian photography named "The road to Inca" was again held here.

In honor of Yuan's contributions, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the Cuban Ministry of Culture respectively awarded him a national medal in 2004.

"I will continue to make more statues of those great people I admire with my artistic talent and limited financial resources", Yuan said.

(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2005)