墨白

MoBai: In the Void of Mountains and Seas

2025 January 18 — Febuary 23

Black-and-white checkered floors, a white beast cloaked in an exquisite garment, glides gracefully through arches. The forest stretches with slender branches weaving through drifting mist, where wild grass bows low and shadows play, composing silent verses within a circular frame. Animals slumber, while the sun and moon reflect faint, mottled traces on the walls, like memories gently seeping through, imbued with both serenity and decay.……

Mobai continues her spatial explorations, constructing three-dimensional structures as a narrative of seasonal transitions. On these structures, she meticulously layers rice paper, allowing water-based pigments to seep through arches, window panes, and frames, revealing the subtle interplay between nature and the artificial. The walls bear the breath of time, where moisture and air leave behind vestiges of the past. Mist from mountain forests and river valleys flows between the painted surfaces and the plaster frames, dissolving the boundary between image and space. Each brushstroke, each texture, each wash of color is a poetic response to the silent conversation between time and space, finally settling in the void of mountains and seas.

The Philosophy of Materials: The Interplay of Texture and Brushwork

Mobai’s works begin with the construction of spatial structures using wood or plaster as the foundation, transcending the constraints of two-dimensionality. The surfaces are covered with rice paper, allowing pigments to seep in and fuse with pre-created textures, evoking a sense of materiality. On her architectural structures, saturated pigments harden into surfaces, simulating the solidity of marble or concrete. Dark pigments stretch along edges, casting shadows that accentuate their weighty substantiality, while the faint watermarks blooming into nebulous hues, creating a dynamic tension between heaviness and ethereality.

Her unrelenting passion for material experimentation leads her to constantly innovate. This time, she blends soil into her pigments, creating grainy, rustic brushstrokes. These earthy textures introduce an element of unpredictability, akin to the subtle traces of time whispering through the tactile layers—an intimate dialogue between substance and temporality.

Traversing Architecture, Embracing Emptiness

The arches, window frames, columns, and the staircase that Mobai constructs subtly reveal a sense of playful irregularity. These structures, unconstrained by rigid architectural logic, serve as guides for the eye, as invitations for perception. The gaze is drawn inward, traversing these structures into the spaces in between, where pigments transform into  glimpses of nature beyond. Mobai’s architectural language crafts an infinite realm through spatial intersections.

In “Grant Me Perfect Joy and Jubilation,” she creates a symmetrical composition of an ancient structure, standing in silent contemplation of time, imbued with solemnity and grace. The way shadow is applied, the way aged textures are built up—all have fulfilled Mobai’s vision. Here, she paused: Should she fill the space between the columns with a natural scenery as usual, or let the emptiness embody the vitality of nature? Ultimately, she preserved emptiness, for the traces of antiquity already speak—of rain and wind, of passing years. Even without an explicit landscape, the trace of nature is already there.

Blending the Past: The Gentle Footsteps of Animals

Having trained in the traditional bird-and-flower painting discipline at the China Academy of Art, Mobai once briefly developed Birds dress in finery series, where her meticulous linework adorned birds with resplendent feathers and intricate accessories. Yet beneath this lavishness, an inner rebellion stirred quietly: “Rather than bearing the weight of jewels, it is better to crown oneself with fruit.” At the time, she found that adhering to the traditional techniques of gongbi (fine-line painting) was ill-suited to her nonconformist nature and sought to leave it behind, forging a new creative path. From the edge of blue series to her current spatial works, Mobai has consistently experimented, expanding her creative practice. Over time, however, she has come to see that tradition and innovation are not opposing forces, but rather the raw essence from which artistic creation is shaped. With technical precision and instinctive grace, she threads the past into the present, interlacing time-honored techniques with the fluidity of reinvention.

In works like “Nestled Beneath the Sea,” “Shimmering Light, Rising and Fading” and “Returning to Listen,” animals return to her work after a long absence. The animals emerge once more, infused with new spatial depth. The animals’ return seems to be inevitable—architectures often hold a sense of isolation, while creatures can serve as vessels of emotion. Here, she gently reintroduces delicate, decorative elements from her past, allowing her creatures to bear finely adorned patterns, merging detail with movement, tradition with reinvention.

In the Void of Mountains and Seas

Mobai’s solo exhibition In the Void of Mountains and Seas is a poetic exploration of spatial language. Through columns and arches,paintings and frames, mountains and seas, presence and absence, she captures the quiet essence of existence. In her practice, she seeks to diminish herself, leaving the work free of overt messages, inviting viewers to encounter their own resonance and discover solace within the void. In these voids, one finds the lingering traces of time and nature, where the dialogue between existence and the unknown continues, without end.

Works

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About Mobai

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MoBai (b. 1985, Fuzhou) graduated from the China Academy of Art with a specialization in bird-and-flower painting. She currently resides in both Beijing, China, and Izu, Japan. Her practice draws from architectural structures and Chinese painting, exploring the interplay between materiality and space. Working with layered foundations such as wood panels, plaster, and rice paper, MoBai constructs textured surfaces and expressive brushwork that push the boundaries of two-dimensional perception. Her paintings are not merely a stacking of materials but a meticulous study of time’s traces. Through the interplay of shadow and negative space, she constructs a distinctive visual language. In recent years, she has actively exhibited in France, Japan, Taiwan, and across China.

CV

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Born in 1985 in Fuzhou, China.

Graduated from the Chinese Painting Department (Bird-and-Flower Painting specialization) of the China Academy of Art.

Currently resides in Beijing and Izu, Japan.

Solo Exhibitions 

2025  “MoBai: In the Void of Mountains and Seas”, Hiro Hiro Art Space, Taipei

2024  “Ligne et lumière”, Lyon Contemporary Art Biennale, Galerie Françoise Besson, Lyon

2024  “MOBAI Spring Exhibition”, san galerie / minori minori, Taipei / Tainan

2023  “The time dwindling like burnt paper”, Yuanbai gallery, Hangzhou

2023  “Lines and Lights: Mobai’s Visual Exploration Solo Exhibition”, LooLooLook Gallery, Paris

2023  “Echoing Birds”, Tong Gallery+Projects, Beijing

2022  “Fluttering among the Gods”, oniment, Shanghai

2022  “POP-UP Presentation”, GRAPH LAYER, Hong Kong

2022  “Listen”, Beijing

2022  “MOBAI Solo Exhibition”, san galerie, Taipei

2021  “A SILENCE VIEW OF CORNER”, delicate antique, Taipei

2021  “Vita with A View”, Forestone, Xi’an

2020  “Signs: a Parallel Moment”, Fnji, Online Exhibition

2020  “Vita with A View”, Fnji, Shanghai / Beijing

2019  “Wilderness of Life”, Fnji, Chengdu

2018  “Evaporate · Special Exhibition”, Aranya, Hebei

2017  “Evaporate”, Fnji, Beijing

2016  “Mountains on the horizon”, Yuanbai gallery, Hangzhou

2015  “Edge of blue”, Fnji, Beijing

2009  “Birds dress in finery”, Fuzhou

Group Exhibitions 

2024  “Swaying in the Wind”, inlabism SPACE, Beijing

2024  ART TAICHUNG, Rich Art Gallery, Millennium Hotel Taichung, Taichung

2024  “Portrait Yuta Nishiura x Mobai”, Galerie Wa2, Tokyo

2023  “Collection Yuta Nishiura x Mobai”, Hankyu Umeda Honten Art gallery,Osaka

2023  “LUXURIANT”, Artnutri Gallery, Taichung

2023  “The Exhibition of ShiQiao & Mobai’s Collaborative Art Works”, Forestone, Xi’an

2022  ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, Shanghai

2022  ART TAIPEI, Artnutri Gallery, Taipei World Trade Center, Taipei

2022  ART HSINCHU, Rich Art Gallery, Ambassador Hotel, Hsinchu

2022  “Mickey: The True Original & Ever Curious”, UCCA, Shenzhen / Beijing

2022  “Asian Contemporary Art Group Exhibition”, Rich Art Gallery, Taichung

2022  ONE ART Taipei, CC Gallery, The Sherwood Taipei, Taipei

2021  Unknown Zone, Landblink Art Space, Shanghai

2021  “beautiful dream Yuta Nishiura x Mobai”, Hankyu Umeda Honten Art gallery, Osaka

2020  “View Yuta Nishiura x Mobai”, Galerie Wa2, Tokyo

2019  “Signs of inner world as outer space”, Yuanbai gallery, Hangzhou

2017  “Women of the World”, Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center, Beijing