Just because something is abstract doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible, and perhaps no modern artist proves this more than Sean Scully. The two-time Turner Prize nominee’s talent for densely packing emotion into colossal blocks of colors and shapes has made him one of the West’s most famous living abstract artists, and two years in the making, his first major exhibition in China, Follow the Heart: The Art of Sean Scully 1964-2014 at Shanghai Himalayas Museum (until Jan. 25) could China Piled Up, a 15-meter-tall sculpture made specifically for this exhibition. –Gabrielle Lipton

This article originally appeared in the December/January print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Living Legend”)