Born in 1968 in Chongqing, Zhong Biao studied at the Zhejiang Fine Arts Academy. He is now a professor at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts. His painting has won international acclaim for its avant-garde, almost proto-surrealist style.

Like many of his fellow artists working in mainland China today, Zhong Biao’s work is an investigation into the identity of a nation.  Focusing his work on the country’s rapidly advancing transformation—whether it be economic, emotional, cultural or political—Zhong Biao has acutely caught the extreme nature of the contemporary moment. His paintings are primarily works of cultural juxtaposition. Combining images and figures from different times and spaces, he seeks to unearth the nation’s ‘visual archaeology’ whereby he ‘cuts a section from the visual symbols people are familiar with, then takes out those fragmented symbols from the cultural deposits of different times, and lastly arranges and combines them in a unique way,’ as Pi Li notes. To him, these various images are the physical memories of a culture, and by juxtaposing a qinghua vase with a Boeing aircraft, he creates paintings that reflect the chaotic and disjointed nature of the world around us.

Zhong Biao’s work has undergone its own transformation over the last decade. While his earlier works are characterized by the juxtaposition of cultural images, the current trend is towards using colour dimensionality against time direction. Depicting the aged images in bold bright colours with those of modern life painted in greys and blacks emphasize the disjuncture between the two worlds. Depicting the living individual in monotone greys, whilst their clothes are given vivid colour, also underlines the artist’s belief that it is the symbols, rather than the people, of an age who have the most lasting effect on the cultural and historic moment.

Zhong Biao’s work is a type of self-exploration into his own questions about history and modernity.  Painting within a culture that is besieged by consumerism, he looks back to traditions which many now consider outdated and conservative and attempts to resurrect their importance in the eyes of his contemporaries and emphasize their continued importance in China’s cultural identity.

"More than anything, my art is an art which searches for order….I search for the order that belongs to the era of today, taking coincidence as a theory of methodology that can explain its everyday connection with the omnipresent"
Exhibitions

Selected Exhibitions
2010
- Embrace ! Denver Art Museum, Denver, USA
- Z artists, Art Scene Warehouse, Shanghai, China
2009
- Beijing - Havana: New Contemporary Chinese Art Revolution, Cuba Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba
- The Tendency of Events, Yuz Art Museum, Jakarta, Indonesia
- On Love? On War? Prominent Contemporary Chinese Artists. Stux Gallery, NYC, USA
-  The very condition, Wall Art Museum, Beijing, China
2008 
- Crouching Paper, Hidden Dragon - Works on paper, F2 Gallery, Beijing
-  Int'l Asian Art Fair, Olyvia Oriental, NY
- Collection Exhibition of Gwangju Museum of Art, Gwangju, Korea
- The Very Condition, Wall Art Museum, Beijing, China
- Semiosis, China Square, New-York, USA
2007 
- Zhong Biao: American Debut. Frey Norris Gallery, San Francisco
- Cohesion, Art Scene Warehouse, Shanghai, China
- Beyond Painting, Xin Dong Cheng Gallery, Beijing, China
- Splendid...Over 10 Years of Exploration,Olyvia Oriental Gallery, London, England
- Starting From the Southwest, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
- Contemporary Cultural Venation - China Version, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
2006  
- Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum
- Chance Encounter - Zhong Biao, ChinaToday Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
- The Self-Made Generation - Retrospective of New Chinese Painting, Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China
- Oriental Imagination, China Art Museum, Beijing, China
- China Now - Wiedergeburt des Mystischen, The ESSL Collection Museum, Austria
- Hyper Design - 2006 Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2005  
- Grounding Reality, Seoul Art Center, Seoul
- Solo Exhibition, Art Scene Warehouse, Shanghai, China    
- American Debut, Solo Exhibition, Frey Norris Gallery, San Francisco, CA
- The Second Triennial of Chinese Art, Nanjing Museum of Art, Nanjing, China
- In Honor of '85: 2005 - 1985 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting             
2005 - 1985     
Shanghai Duolun Modern Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2004  
- Forbidden Senses-Sensuality in Contemporary Chinese Art, L'Espace Culturel Francois, Sarlat, France
- Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai
- The Art Scene in China, Art Scene Warehouse, Shanghai, China
- Asian Invitational, Group Exhibition, Frey Norris Gallery, San Francisco, CA
- The 10th National Exhibition of Chinese Arts (Prize for Excellence), China Art Museum, Beijing, China
2003
- A Chinese Oasis, Art Scene China, Shanghai, China
- Image of Image, Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China   
2002
- Summer Exhibition, David Floria Gallery, Aspen, Colorado, USA
2001  
- China Art Now! Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
- A Chance Existence, Solo Exhibition, Art Scene China, Hong Kong
-Chinese Faces, Group Exhibition, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
2000
- Exhibition of the Collection of Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
- Exhibition at Guangdong Art Museum, Guangzhou, China