Manli Chao is an American Chinese painter. She began her formal art studies at  The Fine Arts Department of Queens College, New York in 1985, and she spent one year studying at The New York Studio School in SoHo area. In 1988 Manli moved to the San Francisco Bay Area of California and began working as an art instructor and freelance painter. In 1996 she entered the graduate program at The Academy of Art University and received her Master of Fine Arts degree in 2001. For the past 20 years, Manli's paintings have been widely featured at numerous highly selective art exhibits in the USA, Taiwan, China, and The United Arab Emirates.