Influenced by her mother, Elaine Chiu’s childhood was captivated by unlimited imaginative creativity. In high school, she began using on-location sketching as her medium, visiting Hong Kong's eighteen districts and capturing the spirit and tranquillity of the city's streets and alleys. During her University years, she presented solo exhibitions "Heartbeat in Hong Kong" (2016) and "Street and Seek“ (2017). After graduating, she delved into Hong Kong's redevelopment districts, exploring urban environment, collective memory, and identity displacement through painting, installations, and performance art. These works culminated in a solo exhibition, “Before Memories Expire” (2021), “The Memory Library” (2021) and a performance art piece, "Catachresis." In 2023, a book of the same title, “Before Memories Expire: Hong Kong Cityscape Aesthetics and Impressions", was published under Chung Hwa Publishing, recognising her widely as "Hong Kong's City Painter" by the media. Since 2024, Elaine Chiu has further refined her urban landscape painting, developing a unique visual language by abstracting pixels and blocks from local and global architectural structures and signboards, which deconstruct the visual rhythms of contemporary urban landscapes and commercial symbols. Exhibitions include “The World Map from Hong Kong“ (2024), "Moments" (Shenzhen) (2024), and "Moments" (Hong Kong) at the Hong Kong Stadium (2025), presenting an abstract realist aesthetic in the context of the AI era, capturing cities and finding harmony through the dissolution of detail.

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​Elaine Chiu received her Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Art History and Sociology from the University of Hong Kong in 2018. She is currently pursuing a Master of International and Public Affairs at her alma mater. Elaine Chiu was named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2023 and was selected for the 14th National Fine Arts Exhibition in 2024. She is a member of the China Artists Association and the Hong Kong Artists Association.

Elaine’s paintings are part of the permanent collections of institutions including the University of Hong Kong Art Museum (UMAG), K11 Art Foundation, Société Générale, Cathay Pacific Airways, and Pucheng Art Museum/Fan Di'an Art Museum, Henderson Land Group. She has also been commissioned by numerous governmental, commercial, and educational institutions. Her works have been exhibited in Hong Kong, mainland China, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Australia, Italy, and other countries, further developing her art that bridges cultures and lives, achieving “a state of mind without borders and a soul without boundaries”.