Jia Lu

Jia Lu (Chinese: 吕嘉; pinyin: Lǚ Jiā) is an oil painter working in America, known for blending Asian and European imagery in her paintings, predominantly of women.

[3][4] Jia Lu worked from 1990 to 1993 in Japan and China, where she conducted extensive research into the Chinese figurative art preserved at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang and is credited with the design of the "World's Largest Buddhist Mural" measuring 700 sq m.[5] In 1995, after travel in Europe, Jia Lu changed her medium to oil on canvas, and began to create realistic figurative work.

[citation needed] In 2002 she exhibited her work at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, and designed the "Goddess of Life" Chinese Memorial statue erected at the Guam International Airport, based on her painting "Flame".

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.

[10] Her mature work in oils demonstrates an interest in Buddhism[11] and a purely feminine aesthetic,[12] and can be seen as a response to the masculine, sensual approach to the female nude.