Born in Beijing in 1954, Zeng Xiaojun graduated from the Central Academy of Arts and Design in Beijing, specializing in mural painting. He moved to the United States in 1983 and lived in Boston for over a decade. In 1997 the artist moved back to Beijing, his hometown.

Zeng is an avid collector of Chinese antiques as well as a painter. His fascination with scholar's rocks, scholar's objects, trees, and Chinese antique furniture brings inspiration to his art; this affiliation is evident in his early landscape paintings and his more recent portraits of trees.

His pursuit in ink paintings returns to the ancient literary and artistic practice that he longs for. For the artist, dormant and bare tree branche...