Ai Jing's installation The Tree of Life. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Her debut album, My 1997, sold more than 200,000 copies within one month of its release in 1993. Her second album, Once Upon a Time on Yanfen Street, was another success,which brought her recognition outside the Chinese mainland, including in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan－a rarity for mainland singers then.

She first went to New York in 1997 to seek inspiration for the album, Made in China, and she wrote most of the songs for the album while living there.

Her apartment was near Central Park, where the tall buildings and graffiti gave her imagery of a vibrant and experimental art scene. She lived in the Lower East Side from 2002 to 2008. She had her studio and honed her skills as an artist there.

"I often went to museums and galleries in New York. The city was like a kaleidoscope tome. It was not just visual enjoyment, but also awakened my desire to use visual art as a new expression, which music could not deliver anymore," she says.

In the summer of 2009, Ai was commissioned to do a work for a group exhibition, The Drop-Urban Art Infill, in New York. She presented recorded sounds with pictures of 10 different places in New York, including the noise of a construction site, and a peaceful afternoon in Harlem－the northern section of New York City,where people walked in the sun and the music of Bob Marley played. The same year, she held her solo exhibition, Ai Want to Love, in New York.

In 2008, Ai left New York and established a studio in Beijing, devoting herself to working as a professional artist.