GUANGZHOU, China, Dec. 29, 2025 -- Recently, the 2025 Most Achieved Chinese Award (MACA) ceremony was held in Hong Kong, drawing global attention to Chinese elites who have made extraordinary contributions to human progress. At the event, Zhang Damo, a renowned artist and Co-President of the Future Living Art Institute at One Heung Kong, was honored with the MACA award, becoming the first painter to receive this globally prestigious honor since its establishment. This marks the highest-level cross-cultural endorsement of the personal accomplishments and international influence of a Chinese ink painting artist.

The MACA award is known for its strict selection process and benchmarking significance, with the core tenet "Recording Cultures, Transmitting Values". Its past winners include legends such as Yuan Longping, I. M. Pei, and Yang Liwei, who have advanced national and global civilization. Zhang Damo's selection was no accident. He has pushed the boundaries of traditional Chinese painting with his "combined meticulous and freehand" technique, infusing his works with profound Eastern philosophy and the spirit of the times. Additionally, as a long-serving "cultural ambassador", he has spent decades spreading Chinese ink painting art across the globe and fostering cultural exchanges.

In his acceptance speech, Zhang Damo emphasized that this honor belongs to all peers quietly inheriting and innovating Chinese culture. Yet the industry recognizes that it is, in essence, a concentrated recognition of his personal artistic system and cultural values. As Chief Artist of the United Nations Peace Boat, Zhang Damo has traveled across European and Asian countries since the 1990s. Through exhibitions and dialogues, he has allowed the Western world to directly experience the contemporary vitality and peaceful philosophy of Chinese culture through the misty allure of ink painting, making him an outstanding representative of the Belt and Road Initiative's culture-first approach.

This award is seen as a major industry indicator, showing that the pinnacle of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, along with its contemporary development, is now recognized and highly regarded by the world's top comprehensive evaluation systems. With his outstanding artistic language and international dissemination practices, Zhang Damo has successfully built a bridge, elevating Chinese ink painting from a national art treasure to a cultural asset recognized by international authorities as part of the world's cultural heritage.