NEW YORK, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations kicked off in New York City on Monday with the opening of an inspiring art exhibition featuring artists from the local Chinese community known for their transnational and cross-cultural practice.

"Art is inspiring. Art is reflection of who we are as people in the culture," said David Sprouts, president of New York School of Interior Design (NYSID) in an interview with Xinhua prior to unveiling an exhibition with the theme of "Blurred Boundaries: Recent Works by Chinese Artists in New York."

The event, the second of its kind co-hosted by NYSID and China's Central Academy of Fine Arts, serves as an education platform for the school's students and future artists, he said.

"Art fosters dialogue between China and the United States," Sprouts said. "Chinese Americans living in New York City (through their arts) blur the boundaries between the East and West, and make people think what that means. I think that's important for our students."

"The exhibition challenges our students to stop by and figure out what is different about it and what they can take away from it," he said, adding about 25 percent of NYSID's students are international, and many of them are Chinese.

The exhibition, slated from Feb. 12 to March 2, was curated by Dr. Zhijian Qian, assistant professor of Art History at City Tech College of City University of New York.

The exhibition was part of "Fantastic Art China 2018," an annual event in New York concurring with the Chinese Spring Festival which falls on Feb. 16 this year.