Michael Mao | Figurative painter

Michael Mao, Chinese-born American painter, was grown up in Shanghai, China. He began teaching himself drawing and painting at the young age of seven.

He also learned painting through many workshops during the weekends when he was in middle school and high school.

After graduated from Tongji University, one of the most prestigious architecture schools in China, Michael did many architectural renderings while working as an instructor in School of Architecture and Urban Design at Tongji University.

In 1992, Michael moved to the United States to advance his architecture career by pursuing his Master of Architecture at University of Texas at Arlington.

While working as full-time architect, he was fascinated by 3D computer graphics and animations. Michael quitted his architect job and went to pursuing his Master of Science in Visualization at Texas A&M University in 1997.

Because of his traditional painting skill and computer graphics knowledge, he was hired as a Matte Painting Technical Director for Oscar winning film "Shrek" at PDI/DreamWorks.

Michael is currently working as a Digital Artist at PDI/DreamWorks. Michael's paintings display an artistic mastery of color, lighting, perspective, technique and vision.
His paintings cover subject matter ranging from landscape, portraits and figures.

Michael's painting has exhibited in many National and international Juried Exhibition and won many Awards.