Chen Wenguang (1953) was born in Guangzhou. In 1983, he graduated from the Chinese Painting Department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and stayed at the school to teach. In 1985, he went to Japan to study for a master's and doctoral post-graduate courses in the Japanese Painting Department of the National Tokyo University of the Arts, graduating in 1994. From 1999 to 2000, he was dispatched by the United Nations Development Program to give lectures at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing as a senior technical expert, teaching the materials and expressions of modern painting, and instructing research. He was employed as a visiting associate professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In 2003, he accepted the invitation of Macalester College in the United States to give lectures.