The son of Zhao Songtao, an internationally-famous Chinese landscape artist, Zhao Hong Sheng was born into a family of artists in 1955 in Tianjin, China. A sister is a painter residing in Austria. A brother is a painter and the Director of the Beijing Museum of Art.

After receiving years of private instruction as a youth in his father's Shan Shui (mountain and water) style, Zhao attended the Arts and Craft Institute. His training included experimentation with Western styles and media, a practice his father had always encouraged. He first gained fame as a fabric designer, the influence of which can still be seen in his art. Zhao's love of the Western masterworks led him to The International Folk School in Demark.

His style has been compared with that of Klimt and Picasso. Zhao reminds us that the lineage of influence is often difficult to determine: Klimt-like mosaics are a common detail found in early Chinese art, while Picasso's Cubism assimilates the recognizably Eastern method of dividing an image into geometric shapes.

Most of Zhao's paintings are gouache on bamboo paper and on wood panels. Gouache is an opaque watercolor made from natural pigments and set in an emulsion of tree sap. He also paints in oils on canvas. His bamboo painting technique is very interesting in that it involves painting on both sides of the paper.