About the Artist

Born and raised in Shanghai, Xiao Mai Kong studied art and design in China and Japan. Her father, Bai Ji Kong, was an internationally renowned painter with works featured in collections and museums worldwide. Mai began learning to paint from her father at the age of five, and through him absorbed a philosophy of life and art grounded in the deep harmony between humanity and nature. That sense of harmony and beauty is what compels Mai to paint every day, with a focus on landscape and still life paintings.

Mai currently lives in Westport, Connecticut. Her past exhibitions include one-woman art shows at the Tenri Cultural Institute in New York City (2022) and the YWCA in Greenwich, Connecticut (2010). In 2017, she was one of nine artists chosen for the SELECTS exhibition at the Westport Arts Center (since renamed MoCA Westport). From 2012 through 2020, Mai was also selected as one of the top 50 Chinese artists living abroad and was featured in the annual exhibition of these artists from around the globe, held at the Shanghai library.