"Beneath the seemingly calm surface of a lake, hidden currents may surge; a spring that appears clear to the bottom may in fact be scalding hot; beneath the ice, the water conceals depths we cannot see. What we see is not necessarily reality—this is precisely why I have such reverence for water. What we call eternity is nothing more than the continuous remolding of countless moments."
— Mengfan Bai
BONIAN SPACE is pleased to announce the solo exhibition, Constructed Water Bodies, by artist Mengfan Bai, from November 22 to December 21, 2025. Curated by WANG Yaoli, the exhibition focuses on the artist’s recent works, which explore water and urban memory. It unfolds at the intersection of urban landscapes, natural water bodies, and constructed environments, treating water as a visual cue—a “flowing medium” that links emotion and geography.
Mengfan Bai’s practice revolves around the urban daily, discovering poetry and subtle shifts in overlooked details. In her early “Tennis Court” series, the subtle color changes of the court surfaces—from cobalt to gray-blue—caused by shifting weather echoed the rivers she passed daily. In this way, the boundaries between natural and constructed landscapes were subtly displaced in terms of color and texture. As she depicted large amounts of artificial materials, their textures, reflections, and folds gradually aligned with the rhythm of water ripples in her work. This sense of “similarity” and “interconnection” initiated her ongoing exploration of water bodies.
In subsequent works, Bai systematically observed the forms of different water bodies: the sulfur color spectra of geothermal springs, the geometric ice patterns on winter lakes, artificial pools in museums representing the Nile, and the distinctive light and density of freshwater lakes. These experiences led her to realize that water is not merely scenery but a “living archive” created by the interaction of ecological processes and human activity. When algae dye a spring ice-blue, when gelbstoff—the yellow organic substance formed from decaying matter—colors a lakeshore golden, or when thermoclines draw invisible boundaries across a lake, water records everything it encounters in its own way, offering the artist new perspectives for creation.
The concept of “layering” runs throughout her water series: vertical variations in temperature and color are more than natural phenomena—they also point to the intertextual relationships between constructed water bodies and architectural environments. Whether it is the cold reflection of steel structures in a museum’s mirrored water feature or the artificial logic of a theme park watercourse modeled after a natural ravine, these seemingly casual moments collectively reveal the hybrid nature of contemporary landscapes. They resonate with Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of “Liquid Modernity”, in which all forms are in constant flux, recomposition, and instability, while also reflecting modern humanity’s complex relationship to nature: on one hand, attempting to tame and regulate water, on the other continuously drawn to it, dependent on it, and called by it. Within this context, works such as Cold Spring, Little Bay, and Southeaster I & II construct a visual notebook of water through the frequency of ripples, chemical color shifts of algae, and the interplay between artificial water features and climatic conditions, making “layering” a key to reading contemporary landscapes. Water has long symbolized impermanence and perpetual motion, and in Bai’s work, its circulation becomes a reflection of reality.
The Chinese exhibition title, “理水 (li shui),” is derived from the concept of "water arrangement in classical gardens" in Chinese. It draws inspiration from the traditional Chinese garden practice of shaping and directing water flows. In Mengfan Bai’s work, this concept acquires a contemporary metaphorical meaning: it denotes both a method of “drawing, storing, converging, and channeling” water and the artist’s process of self-integration after sustained observation of water. Most of the exhibited works derive from artificial pools, thematic sites, and marginal wetlands—constructed, maintained, and constantly adjusted water bodies that demonstrate cyclical flow, reflecting the interweaving of nature and human intervention in contemporary environments. Thus, Constructed Water Bodies is not only about the order of water in space but also serves as a metaphor for how the world operates, how images are produced, and how perception is reorganized. On continuously reshaped water surfaces, Mengfan Bai seeks a mode of viewing closer to essence, allowing flow to become a path to understanding rather than a disciplined object.
