Mai Cheng

She was born in Beijing, China, in 1955. In 1977, she was one of the first students admitted to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing when this institution was reopened after The Cultural Revolution. In 1981, she saw an exhibition with the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch in the Chinese National Gallery in Beijing (NAMOC), and she decided to go to his homeland for further study. She applied - and was admitted to - the State Academy of Arts in Oslo, Norway, where she studied until 1987. Then she received a postgraduate scholarship at the Art Academy in Bergen, and after that another scholarship to Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France. This dual education, from academies in China and Europe, may explain how Western technique and Eastern thinking seem to meet and blend in her art.
Mai Cheng’s largest exhibition so far took place in the Chinese National Gallery (NAMOC) in Beijing back in 1992, in the very same hall that ten years earlier had displayed the paintings by Edvard Munch. Here she showed more than a hundred large oil paintings, many of them abstract, which was unusual in China at that time. Today, her work is represented (under her Chinese name Cheng Zheng) both in China Art Association in Beijing and in the Chin...

Central Academy of Fine arts and Design, Beijing, 77-82
State Academy of Art, Oslo, 84-87
Vestlandets Kunstakademi (scholarship), 88
Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris 93-94

Galleri Asur, 18
Bærum Kunstforening, 16
Galerie Espen Artdenor, Cannes, 15
Oslo City Hall, 15
Oslo City Hall, 11
Hamar Sagbladfabrikk, 08
Oslo City Hall, 08
Molde Art Association, The Jazz Festival Exhibition, 07
Oslo City Hall, 06
Oslo City Hall, 04
Kjeldaas Art Gallery, Oslo, 03
Cour des Loges, Lyon, 03
Noho Gallery, New York, 00
Trondheim Center for Contemporary Art, 00
Gallery MIR, Reykjavik, Iceland, 99
EFTA Gallery, Brussels, Belgium, 98
Molde Art Association, 98
Kristiansund Art Association, 98
Gallery Asur, Oslo, 96, 97, 99 and 01
Gallery Framheim, 95
Espace Bateau Lavoir, Paris, 94
Atelier an der Elbtreppe, Hamburg, 94
Bodø Art Association, 93
Hamar Art Association, 93
Gallery OBK, 93
Maison de Norvège, Paris, 93
National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), Beijing, 92
Gallery LNM, Oslo, 91
Skien Art Association (Ibsenhuset), 90
Møre and Romsdal County Gallery, 90
North-Trøndelag County Gallery
(Namdal Scholarship), 89
Gallery Tonne, Oslo, 88 and 90