She is 71 years old and is a fan of Chinese Olympians and made pictures of the great Chinese athletes. Her pictures are made of paper cutouts.
Deng took paper-cutting as a hobby after her retirement in 2009. She started out with simple designs like birds and butterflies and then started exploring portraits.
"People were skeptical whether my energetic 'racket hands' could hold a pair of scissors," she said, "But sports has taught me to be determined, patient and calm. It actually helped me succeed in paper cutting."
In 2012, she took an interest in making papercut portraits of her table tennis idols. She went to Beijing and searched for all of them.
It took her three months of searching but eventually met famous table tennis heroes like Qiu Zhonghui, Wang Nan, Liu Wei and four other Olympic table tennis champions.
"People thought I was crazy trying to find Olympic champions with a city map," Deng said.
She has completed 108 paper portraits and is now completing her next project. This is 222 pieces of portraits of all Chinese gold medalists.
The collection is called "China, Olympics, and Glory."
"I wanted to commemorate the Olympic Games in my own way and cheer for our athletes," she said.
With the help of her husband, Zhan Xiaoyan, she was able to get information through his research. Sometimes she would work on a portrait for three to seven hours.
He is the mind and I am the hand, we are a perfect team," said Deng.
She added, "Sometimes the early photos are just not clear enough, and my husband and I go through several designs because we want every feature to be as precise as possible."
Her admiration for athletes drives her to persevere in her art. She said, "As a former coach, I fully understand the dedication of every athlete. They are all heroes in my eyes."
Her collection had been on display at the Xiamen Museum since August.