Born in China in 1954, Jia Lu grew up in a family of artists. Raised in a home surrounded by plaster casts of world sculpture, she came to an early appreciation of the beauty and power of the human figure. Jia Lu was already an accomplished figure painter in Western and Chinese media when she left China for Canada in 1983.

Jia Lu’s oil paintings combine Asian spiritual and philosophical inspiration with European classical realism. Her work draws the viewer on silver threads into a world of light and wonder, of deep respect and quiet wisdom. It is a world inhabited by graceful figures contemplating the mysteries of existence, secure, supremely confident and self- assured. In her most characteristic works, Jia Lu’s imagery seems to drift on the edge of a waking dream. The quiet introspection in her figures is the result of a long fascination with Buddhism, and particularly the medieval Buddhist art of Central Asia where she has spent much of her time.

Jia Lu’s realism and detail, built on years of rigorous training in both Eastern and Western traditions, reveal a love for surface and texture. Dignity and solitude emanate from her works, captured and preserved at their most dramatic and universal moment. “For me the challenge is to create beauty,” says Lu, “to better persuade my viewers to look again at their life and the world around them...” As a result, Jia Lu’s paintings belong to a tradition of narrative, realistic art that speaks for itself even while her work has much in common with contemporary figurative trends.

Recognized as one of the leading figurative painters to come from China since the 1980’s, Jia Lu has over one hundred international exhibitions to her credit. Her works are prominently featured in private and public collections around the world.