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Abstract painter Doris Cheng Wai drew deep from her creative well to win the first South China Morning Post Student Visual Artist of the Year Award.
The 17-year-old started making Chinese brush drawings of animals when she was a little girl in Nanhai, Guangdong.
Wai, of St Mary's Canossian College, came to Hong Kong when she was nine and has studied with various teachers.
Her real impetus as a painter came when she was 14 and learned the principles of abstract expression at the Zi Lui Studio.
Her teacher, Lui Wing-lan, taught her that abstract expression knows no limits.
'Its horizon is so wide you can freely create your own dream world within its parameters,' Wai said.
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