Bio

Lingli Li (b. 1991, Xinxiang, China) has been based in Cyprus since 2016. She received her BFA in Oil Painting from Henan Normal University (2016) and her MFA in Contemporary Art from Frederick University, Cyprus (2020).

Working as a painter and writer, she explores the contemporary human condition through painting from nature and prose. Her practice reflects her own journey of integration and personal exploration.

Her work engages with the space between reality and expansion — through perception — drawing from the essence of both Eastern and Western thought and culture.

She lives and works in Cyprus.

Artist Statement

I have painted for many years. Over time, painting has moved from being an art form to becoming a space — a dimension of its own.

This realization came from a specific life: working in a foreign country, painting in the margins of time. Work gave me independence. It also showed me how a set of narrow values shapes the way we see, judge, and act.

My paintings are landscapes, but they do not depict places. I construct inner space — perception, expansion, a way of being that is at peace with itself.

My brushwork and colour relationships refer to the spirit of Chinese calligraphy and Taoist thought. After leaving China, through reading and writing, I rediscovered the common ground between Eastern and Western thought — Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and the Taoist spiritual lineage.

It helped me understand what I was already doing in my painting: returning to perception in nature, exploring the vastness of the moment when subject and object begin to dissolve, observing and practicing a way of being that is harmonious and natural.

My paintings offer no conclusion. They are a sample — one position, one way of working, one attempt to inhabit a different dimension.

Professional Development / Programs

  • 2026 – Participant, Open Call WIP Crit Sessions, Cyprus (ongoing)

Awards

  • 2018 – The work Lhasa Impression awarded The 23rd Henan Province New Artists and New Works Exhibition Excellence Award.
  • 2017 – The work The Little Girl, pastel on paper, selected into the 3rd Children‘s Theme Works Exhibition of Anhui Province Artists Works Exhibition.
  • 2016 – The work Dali Impression awarded the 22nd Henan Province New Artists and New Works Exhibition Excellence Award.
  • 2015 – The work Indigo Taihang Mountain awarded the 21st Henan Province New Artists and New Works Exhibition Excellence Award.