Born in China, Lily Miao moved to New Jersey when she was five. She highly enjoys American desserts and consistently abuses her dad’s skinny genes; a semester of college knocked some sense into her and she has realized that some serious exercise and exertion of willpower is due.
Lily has always held a special place in her heart for John Singer Sargent, her favorite and most revered watercolorist; she believes that there was no watercolorist before Sargent, and quite possibly, none after. Her love for Sargent stems from a few years ago, when she learned watercolors by copying his paintings, and currently, a number of Sargent Venice watercolors are hanging in her home. Lily, however, has never copied Sargent’s Arabia works, and so decided to research his stay there instead.
Lily also enjoys Chinese brush painting, her proudest accomplishment (she is Chinese), and likes both traditional and modern Chinese paintings. She likes to sketch with pencil and sometimes charcoal when she doesn’t mind making a mess. In high school, she dabbled in pastels and oils, at the time Cezanne, the great fruit painter, was her idol. Lily has had solo art exhibitions and won a number of art competitions. She hopes to continue to paint but has put it on hold fort the moment for lack of time and space.
Besides art, Lily also enjoys running, hanging out with her family, and playing the piano, especially pieces she can sing along to when no one is around. Currently, she is obsessed with swing music and Bachata; she feels very lucky that she took Spanish in high school because now she can sing Monchy y Alexandra songs.