Known for her very detailed still lifes, Carle Shi was born in Tianjin, China where she studied at the Tianjin School of Architecture in 1982.  Shortly after that, she turned to oil painting and from 1984 to 1988 she studied at the Tianjin Academy of Art.  The next year, she moved to California and in 1992 began her painting career with still life subjects of fruit and flowers.  She used the technique of 17th century Dutch still life painters.  In 1998, she moved to New York and earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from New York Academy of Art.