Michael Sheng

Michael Sheng is a New York-based visual artist and educator, co-founder of the Art Nest school. Born in a family of artists from Shanghai, China in 1977. 

He moved to the United States with his family when his father, a well-respected printmaking artist came to the country as a visiting scholar during the first wave of Chinese artist migration in the late '80s. Raised in NYC as an extremely shy and awkward teen, painting and drawing were his way to cope with culture shock and loneliness, It's an expression without words, like a loyal friend he can always count on and the beginning of a life-long commitment. 

Michael has studied at The Outreach Program of Fine Art at Cooper Union, Renaissance Art at Polimoda Florence, Italy, and received a Bachelor's degree of Fine Arts in Illustration at Fashion Institute of Technology. He has worked as a painter at Jeff Koons studio, a multimedia designer at CNN.com, and a print designer for various fashion brands. In recent years, Michael has launched an art education business, providing fine art, digital art, and fashion design programs to NYC private and public schools. 

Despite the variety of industries, he has been involved in, Michael has never stopped doing what he always loves, telling stories from his unique personal perspective through contemporary painting and current technology. As an Artist who often feels a certain disconnection with his nationality and cultural identity no matter where he lives in the world, he chooses to be more focused on the common challenges in our society such as environment, human migration and personal issues that expend beyond borders and cultures, these complex feelings and observations are expressed in visual works both spiritually and subconsciously. Therefore allowing the artwork to represent a mirror image of himself.  It's an experiment between traditional painting and multimedia technology (digital animation and sound effect), which blurs the line between analog and digital, and strives to strike a balance between the past and present, and between man and nature.  

Michael's work has been exhibited in galleries and art museums, including The New York State Museum, The National Arts Club, The Salmagundi Art Club, The Society of Illustrators, Grady Alexis Gallery, the Gallery 456, Chinese-American Arts Council, Riverside Gallery, Atlantic Gallery, Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology, Flushing Town Hall and Metropolitan Pavilion.