Born in 1961, Lin Tianmiao was one of the first female artists from China to achieve international recognition. As successful textile designer when she was young, Lin translates her experience of weaving and sewing into her practice as an artist.
As one of the few prominent women artists of China, Lin Tianmiao, was originally a textile designer, in which her technical capacity most definitely discloses and capitalizes to summon her social activism into an aesthetic language. Despite her late discovery of art, Lin surprised the world with her innate creativity that seem prepared at all times to confront and critically point at issues and shadows regarding contemporary China today.

Lin Tianmiao was surrounded by a community of artists, including her artist husband Wang Gongxin who she accompanied to numerous exhibitions in New York. She studied art at the Capital Normal University in Beijing. Returned to Beijing in 1994, reconnecting with local art scene, held ‘open studio’ together, allowing them to manipulate the physical environment.

One senses that here, the impetus driving Lin Tianmiao’s investigation of ‘being’ was much more specifically about the parameters for exerting individuality within a given environment or set of circumstances, as is suggested in her more recent photographic pieces. But for the time being, she used this androgynous aspect to various effects. One series of straight ‘portraits’ focused on manipulating the features of several different faces, revealed as both male and female when examined closely.

Lin Tianmiao is a significant force in contemporary Chinese women’s art. Each of her works is in the process of inference and evolution of language, with its own accuracy and coherence. Her works are products of accurate inference rather than of emotional reaction. On the other hand, Lin Tianmiao’s works show her respect for manual labor, which is reflected in her control and grasp of detail, and in her pursuit of the limit of visual experience. Such respect comes from her gender consciousness as a woman, and her understanding of what being an artist means. Her works have a constant sense of nobility, which is neglected by many contemporary artists too eager for quick success.