COUNTERPOINT: The Field of Reflected Encounters – Art by Echo Xie and Leting Cai

Lipont Gallery Presents “COUNTERPOINT: The Field of Reflected Encounters” Opening August 12, 2025 6-9pm https://opening812.eventbrite.ca Artists Talk: August 18, 2025 7-9pm https://talk818.eventbrite.ca Exhibition: August 12 – September 10, 2025 Mon-Fri 10am-5pm or by appointment at http://www.lipontgallery.ca RICHMOND, BC – July 24, 2025 – Lipont Gallery is pleased to announce “COUNTERPOINT: The Field of Reflected Encounters,” an intriguing exhibition featuring new works by Vancouver-based artists Leting Cai and Echo Xie. This exhibition, opening on August 12, 2025, explores the dynamic interplay of distinct artistic voices and materials, inviting viewers into a dialogue of inner experience, cultural identity, and perception. The title “Counterpoint” draws from the musical term, illustrating how individual melodic lines maintain independence while intertwining to create harmony. In this spirit, the exhibition brings together the diverse practices of Echo Xie and Leting Cai, who, despite their unique approaches, share a common thread of experimental exploration. Echo Xie presents an experimental, multisensory practice encompassing painting and installation. Her work combines sensory elements, materials, and light to investigate the profound connections between perception, emotion, and the subconscious. Through layered sensory encounters, Xie encourages viewers to delve into their own inner responses and emotional resonance. Leting Cai engages in cross-disciplinary practices rooted in sculpture and fibre-based creation. Her art delves into the interconnectedness of material, culture, and gendered ways of knowing, employing techniques such as crocheting, metalwork, and traditional crafts. Cai’s practice initiates layered dialogues among cultural narratives, acts of making, and structural systems. Beyond presenting their individual works, this exhibition highlights a shared experimental process in which both artists merge elements of their respective practices, creating an open, unscripted dialogue at the intersection of material, perception, and space. Exhibition Details: Exhibition Dates: August 12 – September 10, 2025 Opening Reception: August 12, 2025, 6-9 PM Artists Talk: Artist Talk: August 18, 2025 7-9pm – An opportunity to meet the artists and learn more about their creative processes. Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 AM – 5 PM, or by appointment. Visit http://www.lipontgallery.ca to book. Address: Lipont Place, Room 218 (no elevator), 4211 No. 3 Road, Richmond, BC, V6X 2C3 Admission: Free Parking: Free on the south side of the building only. No parking on the north side. Transit: Aberdeen Station (SkyTrain) To learn more and book your appointment, please visit http://www.lipontgallery.ca. About the Artists: Leting Cai Leting Cai is a multi-media artist whose practice explores the intersection of material, identity, and cultural narrative. Rooted in both Eastern and Western traditions, her work spans from intimate textile pieces to large-scale metal sculptures, bridging craft, material construction, and conceptual inquiry. Trained in painting, welding, woodwork, crocheting, and felting, she integrates these techniques with traditional Chinese forms such as Guohua (ink painting) and Fenshui (blue-and-white porcelain making), building a multilingual visual vocabulary that resists categorical boundaries. As a Chinese female artist, Cai engages deeply with themes of gender, labour, and value. Her recent works reexamine the historical division between domestic craft and institutionalized art, questioning the gendered hierarchies that have long dismissed feminine modes of making. By tracing parallels between academic visual languages and household creative labor, she investigates how female creative practices have been marginalized and overlooked in both art history and contemporary institutions. Cai views art not only as a personal and cultural medium, but also as a site for collective conversations. Her installations aim to carve out space—materially and conceptually—for intersectional discourse, inviting audiences to reflect on the entanglements of tradition, identity, and resistance. Through tactile materials and grounded processes, Cai’s work challenges inherited assumptions and invites new ways of perceiving material, gender, and the cultural systems that frame the act of making. Echo Xie Echo Xie is a Vancouver-based visual artist and curator. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Manitoba. Her work has been collected by academic institutions—including the University of Manitoba—as well as by businesses and private collectors, and she has received multiple art awards. Working across painting, installation, and video, Xie explores how internal states—especially those related to consciousness and emotion—can be translated into perceptual form. Her practice is an ongoing experiment in transforming intangible experiences into sensory-based visual language. She uses oil, natural pigments, and mixed materials in her painting to explore the flow and accumulation of feeling. In installation, she works primarily with fiber, light, and moving image to examine how perception moves through space and body, constructing forms that allow inner states to surface and resonate. Through long-term engagement with diverse communities, Xie has observed a common tendency to avoid or suppress emotional awareness. Her work aims to reactivate that awareness—inviting viewers to confront what has been overlooked and reconnect with deeper emotional structures. Media Contact: Patrick Li Pascal patrick.l.pascal@lipont.com 604-285-9975 | 778-288-5108 Follow Us on Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lipontgallery Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lipontgallery/ Xiaohongshu: https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/6407e3c8000000001001ef35 About Lipont Gallery Founded in 2017, Lipont Gallery is a commercial art gallery dedicated to promoting contemporary art by Vancouver-based artists. Our mission is to enhance the local community’s engagement and understanding of art through diverse and dynamic programming. We are committed to supporting local talent, providing a platform for artists to showcase works that might otherwise remain unseen. We pride ourselves on collaborating with various organizations to integrate diverse voices and expand the contemporary art landscape.