C.X. Li, aka Cai Xiaoli, graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing before taking on a teaching post at the school. In 1986, she was awarded a prize for the most outstanding painting at the Artists Exhibition and at The Sixth National Art Exhibition of China, both in Beijing.
Li is known for depicting traditional Chinese flora and foliage that symbolise luck and abundance, such as bamboo, orchids, narcissi and peonies, but interpreted in a Pan-Asian style using strong pigments with deeply saturated colour.
In 1988, she joined her husband, painter Wang Jianan, in the United Kingdom. She has since exhibited jointly with him or in a collective in Munich, Hamburg, New York, Amsterdam, London, Cologne and Geneva. Li had her first solo show in 1990 in Oxford in the UK. In 2003, The National Arts Museum in Beijing mounted Beauty of Great Masters featuring 70 works by both Li and her husband.
