Qu Lei Lei (also Qu Leilei) (born 1951) is a modern Chinese

Han Chinese

Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...

 calligrapher, painter

Chinese painting

Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. The earliest paintings were not representational but ornamental; they consisted of patterns or designs rather than pictures. Early pottery was painted with spirals, zigzags, dots, or animals...

 and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

  currently based in the UK.

Qu grew up in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 during the Cultural Revolution

Cultural Revolution

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...

 and spent some time forced to work as a lumberjack

Lumberjack

A lumberjack is a worker in the logging industry who performs the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to a bygone era when hand tools were used in harvesting trees principally from virgin forest...

 after his parents were branded capitalists. Later, he attended Beijing University and served as an art director

Art director

The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....

 at China Central Television

China Central Television

China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the major state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers...

.

In 1979, as one of founding members of the avant-garde "Stars Group", together with Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Huang Rui

Huang Rui

Huang Rui is a Chinese artist known for his social and cultural criticism. He is widely considered one of the founding members of the Chinese Contemporary art movement, and continues to produce work that reflects the concerns of a highly socially engaged artist through historical references and...

, Li Shuang

Li Shuang (artist)

Li Shuang , born in Beijing in 1957, is a contemporary Chinese artist.Li Shuang’s works testify to her painful personal and artistic journey. She grew up in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution within a family of intellectuals...

, Zhong Acheng

Zhong Acheng

Zhong Acheng , often known by his pseudonym Ah Cheng, is a Chinese author and screenwriter.In 1979, together with Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Huang Rui, Li Shuang, Qu Leilei, Ai Weiwei, A Cheng founded the Stars Group , an assembly of untrained, experimental artists who challenged the strict tenets of...

 and Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist, active in sculpture, installation, architecture, curating, photography, film, and social, political and cultural criticism. Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008...

, Qu took part in the first exhibitions of contemporary art in China.

After Qu left China, he relocated to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to practice his art, lecture and exhibit internationally. The author of a number of books, including The Simple Art of Chinese Calligraphy, The Simple Art of Chinese Brush Painting and The Simple Art of Tai Chi, his paintings were exhibited at a solo display in the Ashmolean Museum

Ashmolean Museum

The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...

 at Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 in 2005, the first time in the Ashmolean Chinese exhibits that a show was devoted singly to the work of a living artist. Also in 2005, he was one of three finalists for the Arts Council England

Arts Council England

Arts Council England was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. It is a non-departmental public body of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport...

"Pearl Award for Creative Excellence".

External links

• Profile at Art for Humanity