She married a Cambridge University professor and moved to the United Kingdom in 1997.

She then earned a master's degree in communication and design from the Royal College of Art in London.

"I'd learned many different styles of painting and was a sort of at a loss in terms of finding my own," she recalls. That changed when she was assigned to create an artwork to introduce herself.

Her eye happened to catch a Shaanxi paper-cut she'd bought in 1992.

"I was lucky I found it," she says.

The piece she created impressed British illustrator and writer Quentin Blake and publisher Walker Books. It helped launch her career in the international market.

She says living in Cambridge's countryside with her husband and three children affords peace and quiet to think and create.

"Sometimes, after I return from short visits to China, I need more than two weeks to process my experiences because the country has so much vivid and interesting information for me to explore in my works."

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