About

Danqi Cai [dan-CHI Tsai] is an interdisciplinary artist and educator currently based in Northwest Arkansas. Born and raised in China, Danqi immigrated to the US as a young adult, spending the last ten years adapting to a different culture, language, and way of thinking. This adaptation reveals to her that the framework of meaning she took to be absolute was, in fact, relational. In other words, she inherited, rather than chose, values embedded in her upbringing. 

Danqi’s multimedia, multilayered, and multidimensional work reminds the viewer: immigrant or not, everyone inherited meanings from their early experiences. Some values one may now endeavor to unlearn. She draws from didactic materials such as folktales, textbooks, and languages to layer 4D processes atop multi-laminated 2D substrates. The results are multidimensional pieces that conceal and reveal information depending on the viewer’s physical point of view. 

Danqi earned her MFA in Studio Art (Printmaking) from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and her BFA in Printmaking and Humanistic Studies from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has shown nationally in juried exhibitions at venues including the Alper Initiative for Washington Art (DC), Bradbury Art Museum (AR), International Print Center New York (NYC), and the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art (VA). She received the Muskat Studios Prize from The Boston Printmakers 2019 North American Print Biennial and the Best in Show award from the 2018 Four Rivers Print Biennial. Artist residencies, including the Chautauqua School of Art and the Hambidge Center, have supported her work. She was an Executive Board Member of the Mid American Print Council from 2020 to 2022. 

Assistant Professor of Foundations | School of Art, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

If you’d like to get in touch, please email me at danqistudios (at) gmail (dot) com