Zhanhong Liao was born in 1965 in Guangzhou, China. After graduating in art from Manchester City College (England), she moved to the Dutch town of Vlaardingen, where she lives and works. She has been a member of the Pulchri Studio, the oldest and most renowned society of artists in the Netherlands, since 1999. In 1998, she received an honorarium from the Dutch Foundation for Visual Art to develop her art, awarded based on strict criteria. Zhanhong has been a full-time professional artist for the past 26 years.

Her work, which initially consisted of diaries and paintings, shows a rapid development from figuration to a looser, more abstract approach. When she incorporates Chinese characters into her paintings, they are not meant to be read as language; instead, they function primarily as shapes and compositional elements within the work. The materials Zhanhong employs have become increasingly important in her diaries and paintings. In addition to her work in traditional media, she also creates live performances, video works, and digitally-based pieces, and she is an experienced curator.

Zhanhong engages with the world around her in multiple ways. She has held more than fifteen solo exhibitions in the Netherlands and participated in over a hundred group exhibitions in countries including Germany, Austria, Finland, Russia, Turkey, Uganda, Greece, and Italy. Her projects, lectures, and artist residencies have taken her from China to Northern Ireland, Tunisia, and Germany. She has also participated in numerous symposiums in India, Greece, Tunisia, Austria, Germany, and Turkey, where she has contributed to exchanges and given lectures.

Zhanhong says, "I happen to have lived more than half of my life in Europe now, and I find it interesting to investigate how that influences me both as a human being and as an artist. How do I make a connection between Eastern and Western cultures? And if I do, how will that change my identity?" She is also aware of the challenges female artists face in achieving equal standing with men in the art world and in daily life. This is why she is especially pleased to join the Empower Her Art Festival in Cairo, Egypt, where she looks forward to meeting artists from different countries and conducting art workshops for local people.