Yu Cai
For Cai the aesthetic was less a stylistic choice than a homecoming: "I felt like I'd found a home, as all the elements and colours that I already loved were present in this aesthetic." A Chinese illustrator and animator based in Venice, she spent more than a decade as a painter and printmaker — shown at biennials in Bucharest, Varna, Kaunas and Łódź — before moving to digital work on an iPad in 2020.
The work is immediately identifiable: neon pinks, luminous greens and candy blues layered into dense, arcade-bright cityscapes, read as a feverish futuristic dreamland, with vinyl records, tropical plants and quiet rooftop-reading moments tucked inside the noise.
It earned her a place in 2024's The Mall is Closing: A Vaporwave Exhibition at Superchief Gallery in New York, and in 2025 a mainstream crossover: one of nine artists commissioned for Gucci's 90 x 90 silk scarf project, reinterpreting the house's Flora, Fauna and Equestrian motifs in what the Financial Times called a vaporwave-inspired vision. The aesthetic reached a $500 accessory without losing what made it legible.