Yi Bai Shuǐmò
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Yi Bai Shuǐmò 一白水墨

Born in the Yangzhou region, land of water and fishing nets; studio in Nanjing. Twenty-five years of ink wash painting, to keep only three elements, a line, a black, a white, and a single discipline: repetition.

Yi Bai, black-and-white portrait: arms crossed, gaze cast beyond the frame

« From the very first day I approached ink wash painting, I swore to become a painter unlike others. For art is freedom, and art exists precisely because of its creative nature. »

Yi Bai began by copying traditional landscape painting, then left it behind to paint outdoors; it took him years to unlearn what he knew. The materials have stayed those of tradition, brush, pine-soot ink, rice paper, the technique has not: ink wash is now no more than a material support for a way of thinking, that of Chan, which commands breaking the rules and trusting the intuition of the moment.

Two discoveries hold the work together. The 'black,' born of a shortage of paper during the lockdown. The line, inherited from the fishing nets, a series that shed the water, the reflections, the boat, then the ink itself. Since 2025, certain works are made of nothing but crossed straight lines, by the thousand, up to 124 × 124 cm.

The vocabulary

What was abandoned

Wash splashed ink hemp-fiber texture strokes axe-cut texture strokes color scattered perspective the scholar’s boat the ritual white reserve in the lower right ancient models theories the fixed order of steps

« I have eliminated every classical method of texture stroke, hatching, dotting and wash, to keep only the line, nothing but straight lines. »

Subtraction does not impoverish: it is the condition for a language of one’s own. « Dare to cast off the ideas and techniques of the ancients and of contemporaries alike, to finally find oneself. »

Black

A thousand characters for one stain

During the lockdown, short of practice paper, Yi Bai copies out Huai Su’s Thousand Character Classic in cursive script onto rice paper, more precious. To save the sheet: pale ink, front and back, upside down, layer upon layer. The white sheet ends up black.

The process becomes a technique. A 'black' of a few square centimeters can demand a complete copy of the text; to the touch, the surface is granular, raised in relief, and no character is legible.

« Though I have written a multitude of characters, no trace of the writing is visible. This raises the practice to a philosophical level: art reaches the height of uselessness. »

Macro detail of a black zone: grain, relief, layered ink
The grain of a 'black.' What the viewer sees: a mass. What lies within it: hours of writing, covered over.

Yi Bai

Profile

Biography

Artist name
Yi Bai 一白, Qian Chuanbing
Born
Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
Studio
Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China
Education
Master of Arts, Nanjing Normal University
Member
Chinese Artists Association, China
Jiangsu Artists Association, China
Association Yang Zi, France
Public collection
Jiangsu Art Gallery, Nanjing, Mountain and Water, acquired in 2006
Award
Mountain and Water, awarded at the 3rd Jiangsu Chinese Painting Exhibition, December 2006
Publications
‘The Beauty of Beauties under the Tang Dynasty,’ essay, Southwest Culture no. 12, 2002
Autumn Paddies, reproduction, Art Observation no. 11, 2008

Materials

Support
Rice paper (xuan). For reproductions, 'chanyi' paper, as thin as a cicada’s wing.
Ink
Pine-soot ink, diluted. Almost never used at full strength.
Tool
Chinese brush, including a fine-line brush for delicate strokes. Pencil for on-site sketches.
Duration
Up to several weeks of daily work.

Yi Bai

Timeline

  1. around 2000

    First contact with ink wash painting, after years spent copying traditional landscape painting.

  2. March 2010

    Kraków. In front of the church where John Paul II rests, the first painting from life where heart and hand finally agree. « From this day, my brush came alive. »

  3. around 2010

    First Fishing Net work: leaning bamboo, a boat, reflections. The series that would become his language.

  4. 2016 to 2018

    Extended stays in Hunan, his wife’s home province. Dozens of works painted from the motif each week.

  5. 2020

    Proportion, 140 × 160 cm, and the Nothing series. Splashed ink still coexists with the line.

  6. 2020 to 2022

    Lockdown. Short of practice paper, he copies Huai Su’s Thousand Character Classic onto rice paper, over and over, until a textured black emerges. The ‘black’ enters the work. He begins painting his wife’s body.

  7. 2024 to 2025

    The black landscapes. From the motif, recording only what is dark enough; everything else disappears.

  8. May 2025

    Abandonment of every ink stain. Only the straight line remains: parallel, crossed, repeated.

  9. April 2026

    Invited by the municipality of Saint-Mathurin-sur-Loire, he paints the Loire from La Ménitré for a month: solo exhibition « Loire Inks », April to June. Then the Atlantic at Batz-sur-Mer, where he exhibits until mid-September.

  10. 2026

    Waiting, 124 × 124 cm: the largest format made purely in line.

Yi Bai

Exhibitions

Going further

The painter keeps a chronicle of his own practice.

The genesis of a work, the birth of a black, reflections on Chan, a month spent painting the Loire.

Read the essays