His father, an electrical engineer who managed a hydroelectric power plant, encouraged him to draw, so he did, whenever and wherever he could... until drawing became second nature to him.

His father's untimely death plunged the family into crisis on all levels, turning Tu-2's life upside down throughout his early teens. Though shipwrecked, he had survived on the sails of his innate intelligence, emotional sensitivity and awareness. Tu-2 gradually found his bearings (often through art), learned to nurture his soul-saving vulnerability, and began to build a steely resolve... a working mast of his character. He emerged a warrior, determined to strengthen his mind, heart, body and spirit. Tu-2 later made the first portrait of his father, during a near-death experience, not just to honor his memory or attempt to heal the pain of his loss, but for Tu's own salvation. This portrait is significant for allowing the artist to experience the possibility of healing through art, and for awakening in him a timeless connection to the infinite through art.
The idea that art can transcend life probably began for Tu-2 here.

Personal discipline, hard work, and his natural physical competitiveness led him to master and teach martial arts, after which he was chosen to join the corps of personal bodyguards for Chiang Kai-Shek and his family. Tu later entered National Taiwan University and earned his BA degree with a major in history, while continuing to draw, photograph, and practice martial arts. He then worked as a photojournalist, traveling extensively along the Silk Road; a documentary filmmaker; art reviewer; and founding director of the first Chinese-American television news unit in Taiwan.

In the early 80's, Tu-2 came to the U.S. to study film and television at UCLA, where he earned his MFA degree, rounded out with lots of drawing classes and a brief marriage. He became the news director of the major Chinese-American television station broadcasting from Los Angeles, Chicago, and eventually New York, after Tu was sent to establish that station on the east coast. Living in New York, Tu-2 moved into an East Village basement studio after his divorce. It was a cold, snowy winter in 1987... He got very ill and almost died. Since the creative act of drawing is so natural for him, what else would he do with his fading consciousness and last drop of strength? His explanation is typically simple:  “...in order to survive death, I picked up a colored pencil and began to draw my dad's face. I felt much better after that, and decided to commit to becoming a serious painter.” From second nature to practiced skill, from hobby to therapy, his talent was honed to a sharp edge through this near-death experience that fully awakened Tu to his lifetime vocation. 

He also made some fine documentary films in this decade -- his seminal documentary on the early days of "breaking" in Southern California, The History of Breakdancing, is a well-observed, timeless charmer, and his groundbreaking Dialogue with Robert Heinecken is both artistically and historically important. But while hindsight (which often determines value in the saturated, finance-directed Los Angeles film scene) was just beginning to accumulate for his films, his paintings were already drumming up kudos in Europe and Asia. The chance to communicate and share his art with a receptive public sealed his dedication to fine art, and his lifelong fascination with faces drew him to portraiture, cinched by his natural curiosity and compassion. 

Throughout his life, whether in joyful times, or times of great anguish, suffering, hardship, and loss, making art has been Tu's silver thread of salvation. His iconic, monumental four-sectioned portrait of the Dalai Lama, an earlier work,  fairly vibrates with emotions – it's electrically charged with compassion, radiant with love, hypnotic with serenity.   The artist's painful journey from a tortured period to his hard-won, transcendent transformation is etched in every line, and all this is communicated directly into the viewer's higher emotional center by some powerful magic... You feel it with all of you, all at once. Infused with wisdom, compassion, humor and timelessness, like the Dalai Lama himself, the conscious art behind the "simple" silver lines illuminating the subject's inner qualities on a midnight sky-dark background is like a punch in the gut... it galvanizes you into the moment and changes your breathing. The heart beats differently, brainwaves shift, you feel as if you're vibrating at a higher frequency, awakened, on the verge... impassioned yet calm with subtly heightened awareness in an all-encompassing state of bliss-being. Only conscious art can have this effect, and it can only be made by an artist who is in a state of conscious enlightenment. ...Only true art can make you swoon!

Tu-2's Timeless series is deeply personal, iconic yet intimate, impressively crafted with a brilliant, original array of techniques; beautiful, powerful and... timeless! His Mickey Mao series Mao-ology (Mao-ology from 0 to 2) has been exhibited in Taipei, Los Angeles and Belgium. His work was highly acclaimed by critics and the public alike, and is the subject of two books and several publications in Europe and Asia. Tu-2 was later invited to represent the artists of his country at the 100th anniversary of the Venice Biennial (Biennale di Venezia), and is taking up his residency as artist-in-residence at the O Street Museum Foundation in Washington, D.C. starting in January, 2012.

A little over a decade ago, after a period of robust success with his first two series, Tu took a prolonged sabbatical from painting to search his soul, reset his spiritual compass, and examine his increasing calling toward monkhood. A new body of work began to emerge around six years ago: a series of spiritual portraits in silver pencil on blue paper that reveal the interior qualities of their subjects. The subjects cover a global range of occupations, ages, races, and interests. Depicted in chiaroscuro (a light-dark technique with ancient roots) -- but using a silver pencil  to draw only the light -- the images seem to be floating from darkness to light, mostly in a state of serenity. He named this new series "108 Bodhisattvas" (“enlightened ones”), as in many eastern religions (including Zen Buddhism) the number 108 symbolizes the infinite, or “infinity” (as well as the number of vices, sufferings, steps to ascend or challenges on the way to perfection or "Buddhahood"), so the name suggests the "infinity" of "becoming a Buddha" in "ones who are enlightened." This number is a concept, not a limitation, so the actual number of portraits is ongoing, toward infinity.... Although a collection of 108 of them would rarely be shown at once, due to space requirements, they are ideally viewed as a group, not separate pieces, to illustrate the infinite ways in which humanity is connected, through time and space.

Deeply spiritual, disciplined, and ever a seeker, Tu-2 was invited several years ago to a dojo hidden in the deep valley of Kalihi, Oahu, for Zen meditation training. He experienced powerful epiphanies during the meditation rituals, and has made several pilgrimages since then. His encounters at the dojo have helped him refine his focus on the compassionate connection required to capture a subject's innermost nature, without the bias of ego-based "self" or left-brained rationale spinning the result into either self-projection or mere shallow flattery. Tu's Zen-inspired work reveals a person's true essence, and a real, inner beauty, illuminated by truth. The "108 Bodhisattvas" Blue Series is not for sale, but a privately commissioned portrait (with broader possibilities) may be hired, depending on the artist's commitments.