Gang Zhao began his art studies quite young - as a seventeen-year-old in 1978 at the Central Art Academy in Beijing, where he began an apprenticeship in mural painting. A year later, Zhao became the youngest founding member of the well-known and highly regarded avant-garde group Xing Xing (Star Star), whose activities did not always sit well with the authorities. Under pressure from the Chinese Government, Zhao made his way west, first to Holland, where he received a grant to study art in Maastricht in 1983; and then, in the following year, to the United States, where he was given a four-year scholarship at Vassar College in upstate New York. He now maintains a studio in New York City.