Zhou He

Zhou He was born in 1956 in Chongqing, China and attended two academies of fine arts. She worked in the publishing industry as an art editor and illustrator for 25 years and was the president of the Pre-school Education Press of East China Normal University before becoming the director of Shanghai Children's Art Education Research Center.

Profoundly moved by revelatory sense of freedom she experienced in her first visit to Britain in 2005, she writes of an almost explosive transformation, as the universe of a thousand changes deep inside her heart was transformed into dust fluttering in the wind, and her detached soul became a wandering spirit.  Further inspired by such diverse cultural figures as by the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), French writer Margarite Yourcenar (1903-1987), and Icelandic rock diva Björk (b. 1965), her brush strokes flow freely between black and white, full of life and spirituality.

With children’s book designs that won many awards and children’s illustrations that were included in many international children’s book fairs, she was recommended by the Cultural and Education Center of the German Embassy in China to hold a solo exhibition in Frankfurt in 2009. Her Tempting Heart series was included in a Jiatai Auction (2006); Drifting away was included in the Shanghai Fine Arts Exhibition (2006); Bjork spirit and Cenar's midnight summer dream were included in the International Children's Illustration Exhibition (2006).