Hu Zhiying (Chinese: 胡志穎; pinyin: Hú zhìyǐng; born November 12, 1959) is a contemporary Chinese avant-garde artist and art educator. He works within the areas of painting, installation, video art, and conceptual art. His artworks are displayed worldwide, and he has taught painting and calligraphy at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and South China Normal University.

Hu was born in Ganzhou, Jiangxi. His ancestral home is Xiangyin County, Hunan. He was part of the "Class of 1977", the first group of Chinese students to take the National College Entrance Examination after its resumption in 1977. He graduated from the Art Department of Jiangxi Normal University. In 1987, he was admitted to the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and studied in the Department of Chinese Painting. During his graduate studies, he joined the 1989 June 4th Democracy Movement.

In 1990, Hu's master's thesis About the Transiency of Art was labeled as "not in line with Marxist principles" and was rejected by Chi Ke, director of the Theory Teaching and Research Section of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. He was denied the chance to defend his thesis and eventually failed to acquire his diploma and master’s degree certificate. At that time, young teachers (including those of the Theory Teaching and Research Section), postgraduates who had finished their program, and those who were studying at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts jointly expressed their opinion to the Academy and higher-level authorities that academic freedom should be respected and learning should not be confused with administration. Wang Huangsheng, a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, said: "Therefore, Hu Zhiying got himself into trouble with his brilliant paper About the Transiency of Art, and the mere presentation of his personal meditation was considered a challenge to the so-called authority."

The full text of About the Transiency of Art was published in Northern Art, journal of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 2001. The title of his thesis was included in the Index of Theory of Plastic Art of 2001 by the Center of Data from Newspapers and Magazines of Renmin University of China.

In 2002, Hu received his Ph.D. degree from the College of Liberal Arts of Jinan University with the thesis On the Paramitality in Literature. His poems are published in Chinese and Western Poetry, Survivors Poetry, etc. Hu Zhiying is also a dissident in mainland China. His articles criticizing the autocracy of the Chinese Communist Party are published in "Beijing Spring", "Huanghuagang Magazine", and Taiwan's Chinese Culture Monthly.

Hu teaches modern art and traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting at the College of Fine Arts of South China Normal University. In the 1990s, he was invited to exhibit his work in Europe. Since 2000, his works have mainly been exhibited in China and the United States. He was invited to collaborate with the Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) in New York City in 2020.

Hu uses materials from Western art and Chinese traditional painting and arts and crafts, such as oils, acrylics, Chinese ink, varnish, silver, gold powder, etc. The lines, strokes, and images in Hu's paintings include the Eastern methods of connecting reality and fiction, conflicting forms, changing visual effects, virtual space forms, and free artistic skills, which dispel real shadows into virtual shadows.

Wang Huangsheng, an art critic and professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, said that Hu's paintings draw lessons from ancient Chinese arts and crafts materials and techniques such as lacquer and ink and wash. They contain images misappropriated from Chinese landscape paintings of the Song Dynasty; for example, the partial images of Ma Yuan's paintings are recombined in Hu's works.