CAI XI 奚采


Selections 1979-1989 from her retrospective March – April 2018 Cai was in the first generation of art students after universities in China reopened after The Cultural Revolution. This four-decade retrospective at Currier Art Center of Cai’s work traces a path from the Shanghai Style of the ’80s, with color used straight from the tube and brushwork with bold and loose strokes, to the present through a selection of Cai’s portraits, landscapes, abstractions, and a new installation on the Chinese Five Elements.


Even in the 1980s, Cai responded to assignments and creative practice with determination and joy. Already schooled in studio practice, she responded with strong, deeply-felt portraits that are already masterly and indications of fierce talent. She has a way of literally throwing her body, mind and soul into her painting, a method which results in passionate/poetic communications.

Cai’s college teacher in early 1980s China said, “Wherever you go; don’t give up an opportunity to learn and be inspired.” I am thinking about how that teaching method has resulted in her present practice of not only making her home an art-life center of creativity via food as art, communication as art, dealing with life issues with others as art but also her Putney School experience of taking her students to China. Sort of duplicating her teacher’s axiom of going to the source!

As artist-teacher, she continues her teacher’s courage to go into the unknown to create and find inspiration. Her sensitivity is always shared, never ego-bound, but stirring inside and shining so that those close to Cai, are taught by her focused art-light. Listen to what she says, a story of healing:

’Then I realized that I had put myself in danger and that gave me a feeling of shock. I took that shock and started a painting.’ This is a good life-art recipe, and way to transfer pain into gain, into healing, into knowledge, a way that she practices, even now. She is a masterful artist/lifeist. Thank you, Cai, for your strong brush strokes; for your ability to translate persons to paint; for your courage to travel to the site of your vision.
— Linda Montano

Earth and Sky


Alec - Charcoal and gouache on paper