Whitestone Gallery

A19 / Taipei, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Karuizawa

+886-2-8751-1185
info@whitestone-gallery.com
https://www.whitestone-gallery.com/

Pei BAO was born in 1960 in Anhui, China. She graduated from the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1984. In 1987, she moved to New York, USA. She returned to China in 2003 and is currently based in Beijing. Her works have been collected by the National Art Museum of China, the Sweden National Museum, as well as private corporations such as Motorola (China) and Siemens (Germany).

Pei BAO’s artistic style is the result of a deep distillation of her life experiences. After a decade of working with oil painting, an unexpected moment reignited a long-forgotten memory—woodcut printmaking. It began with the texture of handmade paper, a small bottle of tempera pigment, and the distinct scent of woodblock ink. Drawing on her academic background in woodcut printmaking at the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, she returned to the act of carving—using blades in place of brushes. However, this return was no longer confined to traditional printmaking methods. Her However, this return was no longer confined to traditional printmaking methods. Her current approach combines carving and hand-drawing, layering and disrupting the surface with both oil-based ink and tempera pigment until an ideal visual state emerges.

Pei Bao’s practice centers on the integration of oil painting and printmaking vocabularies, constructing evocative, spiritually charged landscapes. Her compositions feature intaglio ink strokes reminiscent of woodcut incisions, graffiti-like sprays of pigment, and improvisational gestures made by smearing paint with her fingers. Within a rational, grid-like structure, layers are repeatedly applied and disrupted—an act that resemble a search for redemption through personal memory. In this process, emotional intensity is unleashed with both freedom and restraint. Her creative approach strikes a delicate tension between control and eruption, transforming written reflections into painterly actions.