May Zheng is an illustrator, fine artist, and portrait artist based in Central New Jersey.

May is an oil painter working in imaginative realism, illustration, fine art, and portraiture.

Aspiring beyond articulating narrative, her illustrative work seeks to visualize otherworldly, dynamic moments that feel like the higher order of myth: both immortal and ephemeral, suspended and metamorphosing, grand yet intimate. Similarly in her portraiture and fine art, she weaves modern figures with classical compositions, crafting a distinctly timeless yet dynamic air for each subject. 

May received her first book cover commission when she was 18. At age 19, she was recognized as a Finalist by the 16th Art Renewal Center Salon in the professional tiers of Imaginative Realism and Portraiture. At age 20, May was recognized and published as a winner of the international Illustrators of the Future contest, and at age 22, she won a Grand Prize in Infected by Art Volume 14 and was invited to be a judge for IBA 15. Selections of her work were featured in Highlands Art Gallery when she was 19 and she was accepted into the IX Main Show 2025 at 21 years old, where her work has been purchased by several collectors. May has also contributed to developing the curriculum of Evolve Artist, an international-award-winning education in the fundamentals of visual art that has students in over fifty countries.

May is the owner of, and sole instructor at, the Art Academy of Plainsboro, which she opened in December 2024 at age 21.

In addition to her career in painting, May graduated from Rutgers University in May 2025 with degrees in cognitive science, Russian literature, and history.

Selected Clients

  • Plainsboro Township Municipal Center (portraiture, 2026)

  • The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York (portraiture, 2024)

  • Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (New Brunswick) Russian and Eastern Europe Languages and Literatures Department (illustration, 2024)

  • Galaxy Press (illustration, 2023)

  • kOZMIC Press (cover illustration, 2021)

Awards

  • Infected by Art Volume 14 Grand Prize (2026)

  • 17th Art Renewal Center Salon Finalist in Imaginative Realism (2024)

  • Illustrators of the Future (2023)

  • 16th Art Renewal Center Salon Finalist in Imaginative Realism and Portraiture (2022)

  • Oil Painters of America 4th place Student Competition (2022)

  • 15th Art Renewal Center Salon Teen Finalist (2020)