Shawn, 蔡翔 (Cai Xiang), was born on a blistering summer day in July of the year 1998, in a rural village in Central China. He grew up as the only child in a low income family, whose main livelihood was farming on the outskirts of Shanghai before his father took up another occupation a few years later. The family settled down in a small city an hour from their ancestral home at age 7.

The relocation was merely temporary, as just three years later, in July of 2008 on his tenth birthday, Shawn and his family moved to the United States, settling in a suburban town in Connecticut.

Having lived half of his life - many of his formative years - in China under a different socio-political environment, Shawn’s views on individuality, authority, transparency, creative expression, and life itself are greatly influenced and continuously molded by the clash of opposing cultures and ideals.

Working with a variety of mediums, Shawn grapples with his often conflicting outlook on various aspects of life through art, attempting to find some semblance of order among the chaos. The theme of contradiction is evident in his current work, as the borders between colors and textures are blurred and re-established through an iterative process.

Like himself, Shawn’s work is a nature-thing, continuously evolving.

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shawnxcai.art@gmail.com