Qiu Jie, pen name "Ta-xiang Shan-ren" (Recluse from a Distant Land), was born in Shanghai in 1961. As a child, Qiu Jie was left to the care of his grandparents in Shanghai when his parents relocated to Anhui province. Raised by his grandparents, Qiu Jie began drawing at the age of ten. Qiu followed and scrutinized newspaper images of workers, farmers, and soldiers and practiced his drawing from them for hours on a daily basis. In 1978, his exemplary academic record enabled him to leap a grade ahead of his peers, Qiu was subsequently admitted to the Fine Arts Department of the Shanghai Light Industry College. After graduation, he worked for six years as an art designer for an instrument company in Shanghai. During this period, his work took him to cities and provinces throughout China where he organized product displays and advertisements and which at the same time gave him the opportunity to see the country and visit many iconic sites. These experiences continue to serve as an inexhaustible source of creative inspiration to the artist to date.
Qiu held his first solo exhibition at the Xuhui Cultural Center when he was merely twenty-four years of age in May 1985. With the recommendation of two Swiss artists, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Geneva in 1989. Qiu then began working on large-scale drawings and oil paintings with meticulous details that require six months to two years to complete. The artist started to explore artistic forms and contents unique to his generation and to re-examine the Chinese Revolution as a unique modern experience. This endows his works with a dynamic tension borne out of incongruity and poetry.
Qiu has exhibited internationally and his work is found in important private and public collections including the Sigg Collection, The Saatchi Gallery, MOCA Shanghai, Geneva Contemporary Art Foundation and Amsterdam Museum of Fine Arts.