Chess pieces of every variety are scattered throughout the solo exhibition "The Defense" by Cai Zebin this year. The title of the show is taken from renowned Russian-American writer Vladamir Nabokov’s novel of the same name, which depicts the life - outwardly uneventful, but turbulent at its core - of a professional chess player. The chess pieces are serving as visual “clues” in his works. Cleverly arranged in different settings, they form balances or contrasts with brushstrokes, textures, colors, and other compositional elements. Cai’s paintings, consciously or unconsciously, evoke moments in art history that are both unforgettable and difficult to pin down: from the American Regionalist strain of realism to Gothic art, from the creations of Early Renaissance masters to the later work of the Impressionists. The artist “disguises” his paintings behind surfaces that seem devoid of immediate meaning, thus distancing them from art that is pleasing at first glance, but lacks substance in reality.