Jia Lu was born in Beijing, China, where she worked as a nurse, an actor, a navy officer, an art editor and as a professional basketball trainee before enrolling in the Central Academy of Art and Design to begin her professional training as an artist. As the daughter of two artists, Lu came by her talents naturally and has exhibited her work in national and international exhibitions since childhood.

She has worked in the US, Canada and Japan as a professional artist and designer since 1983, Lu has became one of America’s foremost realist figure painters. Her style is about beauty, spirit and wisdom. She describes her career as a process of self-discovery, a search for self-knowledge and a celebration of self- confidence.

“For me the challenge is to create beauty,” says Lu, “to better persuade my viewers to look again at their life and the world around them. I have a passion for art, and the human figure is at the center of it. I want to share that passion with my viewers, through my painting.” As a result, Jia Lu’s paintings belong to a tradition of narrative, realistic art that speaks for itself. Nevertheless her work has much in common with contemporary figurative trends. Though clearly influenced by Buddhist philosophy and her Asian background, as well as European symbolism, Jia Lu’s style defies simple classification.