A journey from China to United States

Cai Xi highlights three generations of artists. Her great-grandfather, a late Qing dynasty governor of Zhejiang province, was a traditional Chinese painter, poet and calligrapher. Her father was a stage designer in Communist China. Cai was in the first generation of art students when universities in China reopened after The Cultural Revolution. Her work traces a path from Sichuan Style in the late '70s with a palette of intermingling hues that echo the surrounding environment, and the Shanghai style of the '80s with color used straight from the tube, with bold and loose strokes, to the present day through her landscape and abstraction. In early teens in the '70s, Cai studied under her father. An essential lesson was given to draw an egg 100 times, the result being 100 differences in emotional subtlety. Cai's meticulous studies had a realistic approach to the characteristics of the object and the relationship between light, shadow and surroundings. Through magazine pictures Cai had a glance at Impressionism and German Expressionism which opened her imagination in spite of no exposure yet to abstraction. Arriving in New York in 1987, Cai embraced the idea that art is possible everywhere and in everything.