ZHAO KAILIN (B. 1961)

Zhao Kailin graduated in oil painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1991, one of China's most prestigious art academies. His style is founded in China's contemporary realist oil painting movement, nascent in the 1990s. Zhao's international career has taken him from China, to Sweden, to California. Living across three continents has allowed Zhao to expand on his formal training in China through close study of European and North American painting traditions. His distinctive portraiture focuses on female subjects, most often Asian women accompanied by material makers of their East Asian heritage, here the jade pendant that hangs from the sitter's outstretched hand.