Jia Lu 1954 | China

Jia Lu is an oil painter working in America, known for blending Asian and European imagery in her paintings, predominantly of women. Jia Lu's works include Chinese ink paintings, oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, sculpture and prints. Her early work strongly reflected the traditional aesthetics of her teacher Fan Zeng, but by the time she exhibited in Canada, she was critiquing new social developments, consumerism and power relations in China through a series of mixed-media self-portraits. Her mature work in oils demonstrates an interest in Buddhism and a purely feminine aesthetic and can be seen as a response to the masculine, sensual approach to the female nude. However, she has also painted male figures. In numerous interviews she has emphasized the importance of beauty in her work, which she describes as "strength and wisdom".