Zhang was graduated from The Affiliated Senior High School of China Central Academy of Fine Arts, and then continued his study in China Central Academy of Arts and Design. In 1982 he went to the United States, and currently lives in New York. He was the first one who transformed the head portrait of Mao Zedong, and since then he has been frequently invited for every exhibition relating to political Pop.

The characteristics of Zhang's paintings are that he applies the techniques of the Impressionism and the Post-Impressionist paintings in the Chinese traditional landscape paintings, and while applying the Western techniques, he preserves the composition and the vast scope of the Chinese traditional landscape paintings. His works reflect the mood as a foreigner, and most of his themes are the binaries between the East and the West, the delicacy and the roughness, the extraordinary and the ordinary. Recently he applies the techniques of Cezanne and Van Gogh in painting the Chinese landscape, and his works always present his subversive and cynical attitude.

Educated with knowledge of both the Eastern and the Western art, Zhang believes that the fusion of both cultures has become a phenomenon and hi s paintings "Based on the Chinese paintings, with imitation and new techniques create his own things." Boldly he goes astray from the traditional aesthetics of both the East and the West, and with an objective perspective he provides the beholder a new visual experience.