Biography

Karl Weiming Lu (吕.卡尔.卫民) is a Pioneer and Master of Contemporary Art of AI, Science, Psychology, and Philosophy and a Chief Curator of 2026 Venice Biennale Parallel Exhibition "Hangzhou to Venice: A Contemporary Art, Silk and AI Road" at Palazzo Bembo, Venice, organized by ECC (European Culture Centre)- Italy. Besides, he is also a Premium Plus Member of National Association for the Visual Arts, Australia; an Executive Director of The Intelligent Education & Training Committee of the China Wisdom Engineering Association; and a visiting Professor of Boya Think Tank of Beijing University.

Karl W. Lu was born in 1962, into a big renowned intellectual, political, business and art family for generations in the world cultural heritage city Hangzhou, China. Today, Hangzhou is not only a cultural & arts centre, but also an E-commerce and AI Hub of China and the World, where the giant Hi-Tech E-commerce and AI enterprises, such as Alibaba, DeepSeek, and Unitree Robotics, etc. are based. In such a great city of Hangzhou, Lu’s parents spent their professional careers at the China Academy of Art. His father was a professor and the editor of An English-Chinese Dictionary of Fine Arts 《英汉美术词典》. His grandfather Zhong Yu Long (钟毓龙）was a Lord of Ju-Ren of the Qing-Dynasty ( 清末举人）and a Member of Parliament of Zhejiang Province of The Republic of China (民国浙江省议员) before October 1949. After then, he was also elected as a Vice Chairman of The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference of Hangzhou（杭州市政协副主席）. His grandfather is also a renowned historian, educator, calligrapher and author of the famous books, A Historical Tale of the Ancient Chinese Myth 《上古神话演义》 and A Narrative of Hangzhou《说杭州》. His grandfather was also intermarriage with a leading business family in Hangzhou, which mainly run the textile business before 1949. Karl Lu had been deeply influenced by such a family and social environment of traditional, modern and contemporary Chinese culture, arts, history, business and politics.

Since 1991, Lu relocated to Australia to have his postgraduate studies in philosophy in The University of Wollongong, one of the world's top elite universities for philosophy, ranked 6th globally in the prestigious 2026 QS World University Rankings by Philosophy Subject, where Lu earned his G. Dip. Arts majored in philosophy. After then, Lu had his postgraduate studies in international relation at the Faculty of Economics & Business of The University of Sydney, where he got his G. Dip. International Studies in 1995. After then, during 1996 - 97, Lu returned Hangzhou, China, where he ever worked for an American fashion & garments trading company and had a business trip to purchase silkworm cocoon in Uzbekistan, a well-known central Asian country located on the famous "Silk Road" linking East to west. During the China and Uzbekistan trips, Lu had some romance and got married.

For family reasons, he returned Sydney in late 1997. And then, he got an ordinary and stable job in a hospital, meantime, enrolled in another postgraduate course in applied finance & investment at The Securities Institute of Australia, where he learnt some core subjects of financial market & economics, financial analysis & valuation, etc. meanwhile, he traded stocks and shares online as well, especially, traded those dot.com related first wave digital and e-commerce stocks and shares.

The first wave dot.com market boom collapsed between 2000 - 2002, however, Lu still believed the great future of the internet and web-based e-business. So that, he decided to update his knowledge and skills in both visual arts and web design, in order to fulfil his childhood's dream to be a Renaissance-style Master of Art on the one hand, and to acquire e-business related web design skills to pursue his entrepreneur goal on the other hand. Thus, between 2003 - 2007, he further well completed three master’s degrees in art, design, and architecture (majored in architectural computing) from UNSW (The University of New South Wales). Recently, in 2024, Lu just updated his knowledge and skills in AI related e-business again and got his Executive Education Certificate of "Competing in the Age of AI" from Harvard Business School.

By the way, and importantly as well, during the 1980s, before Lu came to Australia, he was a civil engineer and project manager in Hangzhou. He learnt building design & construction management from Zhejiang University of Science & Technology, and management psychology from China Academy of Science. Besides, he also worked with China Academy of Art to publish his translation works of world masterpieces in art history & theory and thus directly participated in the 85 New Wave Art Movement in mid 1980s. Meantime, he also published his translation works of some masterpieces in philosophy of mathematics on the Journal of "The Philosophical Issues of Natural Science" edited and published by the Chinese Academy of Social Science, which clearly indicated a deep root and solid foundation for Karl Lu's pioneer & leading position as a Master of Art of science, philosophy and AI.

Since 2000, Karl Lu has been practicing art professionally, his artworks have been exhibited, published, awarded, and collected globally. Trained in both Eastern and Western traditions, he often combines the two to create unique hybrid styles with both oil and Chinese ink brush techniques. "The Memory Series 2002-03” originated his Xie-Yi freehand acrylic & oil painting（写意丙烯油画）which evokes both real and imaginary landscapes where 1980's Chinese elite students pondered philosophy, psychology, literature, economics, art, AI and science. Lu created the "Dripping Fluid” technique in his “Memory Series: Talking about Dreams" in 2003, which had been further developed by him into a “Dripping Flow Abstract Art”. Also, about two decades ago, his "Memory Series: Talking about Next Generation AI" had foreseen and predicted the "parallel thinking & advancing together computing essence (平行并进计算机思维本质）" of NVIDIA's GPU and OpenAI's ChatGPT today. Since 2010, Lu has created his unique Intuitive Abstract Art of Philosophy of Science & Technology - "The Origin Series", to abstractly paint his intuitions about the origins of life, nature, and universe with his bold and fluent brush strokes. In recent years, he also created again the Geopolitics Art Series caring about the world peace and concerning about the wars around us, such as, the Ukraine - Russia War, the Gaza War, the USA-Israel Iran War, etc. In fact, over two decades ago, he ever created a series work regarding Iraq War in 2003.

Artist Statement

"My goal of life is to fulfill myself as a genuine thinker, creator, and entrepreneur; meantime, to realize myself as a real Master of Art of our time and beyond, especially to be a true Master of Art of Science, AI, Psychology, Philosophy, Geopolitics, and more ...; and further, to abstract myself as a Master of Intuitive Abstract Art of life and universe! Besides my art, to love and make babies to complete my natural mission as a real man and father! "

Website: www.kwluart.com
Email: kwlu8@hotmail.com
www.kwluart.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlweiminglu/

Karl Weiming Lu

Kathy Stanley

Ai-Wen Wu Kratz