Qu Lei Lei is a senior and accomplished artist who specialises in ink painting and collage. He was born in North China in 1950; his father was a well-known writer, and his mother a professor of medicine. The family were targeted during the Cultural Revolution, and Qu Lei Lei himself was badly beaten by Red Guard and exiled to Manchuria for re-education.

Back in Beijing in 1979, he joined a group of young artists known as the Stars, who famously hung their paintings on the railings of the National Gallery. When they were allowed to show their work two months later, 200,000 people viewed the exhibition. In 1985, Qu Lei Lei left China for England and from humble beginnings has since built a successful career in his adopted country, exhibiting in many galleries around the world, including the Venice Biennale and the Ashmolean Museum of Art.

Qu Lei Lei is an excellent draftsman and painter who has shown himself capable of dealing with a wide range of subject matter. His recent work includes the "Hands" series, large-scale portraits of "Everyone's Life is an Epic", and large-scale nudes. In all of these, the artist makes use of light and shade, rather than the traditional means of line, to express the form; this represents a significant development within contemporary ink painting.