MINGSHI LIN
b. Shenzhen, CHN
b. Shenzhen, CHN
She/her
About
Mingshi (Soléa) Lin is a interdisciplinary artist and DPhil student at the University of Oxford, whose practice now mainly concentrate on oil painting, film, and scholarly work. Her experience spans leading visual and media productions for the Olympics and films across the globe, with accolades including Forbes China’s 2023 Top 100 Young Artists and The Official Olympic Commemorative Medal awarded by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of South Korea.
Drawing on her background in visual arts and Latin American Studies, Lin’s work goes beyond mere depictions of fantasy and phenomena to explore the resonances and frictions between science, nature, and culture—particularly in Global South contexts—with her artistic practice serves as a parallel form of historical and interpretive research.
Her works explore plants, the culture of “lines,” ancient Chinese science and the I Ching, and Latin American indigenous cosmologies. She advocates for dialogue between modern science and the ancient natural philosophies of the Global South—reweaving the divided realms of science, nature, the human, and the nonhuman. Currently, she is developing projects that braid knowledge systems, inviting audiences to cross sensory, cultural, and ecological thresholds grounded in relational ontology.
Beyond academic and historical inquiries, Lin’s creative process is rooted in an intuitive sensitivity to the metaphysical ambience of the world. “Imagination is a sensory movement; the canvas is the habitat where my mind should go and rest,” she writes. “Art lives in the uncanny collision between dreamy vision and real tactility. I just let my hand move, selling imagination, not products.”
Educations
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
DPhil. Medieval and Modern Languages. 2025—
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
MPhil. Latin American Studies. 2024
University College London, London, UK
MA. Film Studies. 2022
School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
BFA. Film. 2020
Exhibitions and Publications
2025
XV Florence Biennale “The Sublime Essence of Light and Darkness. Concepts of Dualism and Unity in Contemporary Art and Design.,” Fortezza da Basso, 18-26 October 2025, Florence, Italy. (Incoming)
2023
FORBES Top 100 Young Artists of China, CHN
ART COMPOSITION--European Contemporary Art Exhibition, by Bravo Arts., China Resources Tower Art Center, 1 August 2023-30 September 2023, Shenzhen, CHN
ART Shenzhen. Shenzhen International Cultural Convention and Exhibition Center Hall 7/8, September 2023, Shenzhen, China.
Sea World Culture and Arts Center, 2 December 2022-5 January 2023, Shenzhen, China.
2021
Future? Future!., AIXY Center, December 2021, Shenzhen, CHN
2020
2018
Quartz (2019), Nest Gallery, Sea World Culture and Arts Center, Shenzhen, CHN
Lin, M. (2020). ‘The Critical perspectives on the Creative Storytelling and Character Development’, Crossing Boundaries: Chinese Art in Transition. Beijing: Heilongjiang Art Press, pp.62-66. ISBN: 978-7-5593-5715-1.
Lin, M. (2019). ‘The Fire That Unites: An Olympic Symphony’, in Song, Z. (ed.) Passion for Pyeongchang 2018: 2019 Chinese Volunteers Winter Olympics and Paralympics Story (Chinese Edition). Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, pp.214-223. ISBN: 978-7-5166-4874-2.
Lin, M. and Zhao, M. (2020). ‘River of Life’. [Film Music] mixed by Yuesong Li. Beijing: New Classics Media
︎︎︎ Contact
VISUAL PROJECTS
The circular piece reinterprets two seemingly opposing hexagrams from the I Ching—Hexagrams No.11 “䷊ Tài (地天泰)” (“Peace” with ☷ above the ☰, Heaven and Earth in harmony, all things flourishing) and No.12 “䷋ Pǐ (天地否)”(Stagnation, Heaven and Earth in disjunction, all things are obstructed). As a representative pair, they embody the cyclical tension between union and separation. This work explores the shifting dynamics of all things—connection and blockage, convergence and dispersion, ascent and decline—through this duality.
The round canvas can be freely rotated: from each angle, Heaven and Earth, yin and yang, continually exchange positions, shifting from “connection” to “separation.” What the viewer experiences in rotation is not a fixed image, but a circulating energy and a sense of time-space in flux, also evoking the idea of “Zhuan-yun (轉運)”—the turning of fortune and the arrival of good luck through changes.
Inspired by Chinese ink, calligraphy and landscape techniques, the artist builds an exceptionally thin oil surface. Water-like layers, vortices, and textures evoke the rotation of “qi (氣)” in thought of Taoism; subtle shifts in tone and light suggest the gathering and dispersal of energy. The work invites audience to go beyond the static plane to a participatory meditation: every act of rotation becomes a reordering of Heaven and Earth, a momentary transformation between Tai (harmony) and Pi (obstruction).
64 HEXAGRAM—No.11: 泰 (Tài) ⇔ 否 (Pǐ)
䷊↺䷋
⌀ 100 cm, Oil on Linen, 202564 HEXAGRAM—No.31: 咸 (Xián)
䷞
40 x 50 cm, Oil on Linen, 2025The series draws on I Ching (Book of Changes) is a foundational text of ancient Chinese natural philosophy, using 64 hexagrams to reveal the transformations and patterns of the cosmos.
The Terrapolisian
60” x 70”, Oil on Linen, 2023
Chthulu Secrets
20” x 30”, Oil on Linen, 2023
All we can sense of nature is an echo of our “sounding out” of it.
We posit nature retroactively. (Morton, 2007)
DANTE: THE EPHEMERAL ETERNITY
18” x 12”, Oil on Canvas, China, 2019
DANTE: THE BACKBONE OF FLUID
16” x 12”, Oil on Canvas, China, 2020
64 HEXAGRAM—No.50: 鼎 (Dǐng)
䷞
50 x 40 cm, Oil on Linen, 2025
64 HEXAGRAM—No.2: 坤 (kūn)
䷁
70” x 30”, Oil on Canvas, China, 2023“Would you hear,
the bells in my lungs,
between my inhale and exhale,
are all softly chanting,
for the death.”
This shows “䷁ Kūn (坤卦),” one of the opening hexagrams, which symbolizes the Earth—its capacity to sustain and embrace. Composed to be read from the upper right toward the left, the work employs flowing liquid forms to evoke an embryonic process of ‘becoming,’ a metaphor for the origin of life. It resonates with the spirit of “the Earth’s virtue carries all things” (厚德载物), expressing the Earth’s nurturing embrace of creation. As “䷁ Kūn” consists of six broken lines (Yin), it embodies a profoundly feminine, gentle, and generative energy.
64 HEXAGRAM—7: 地水師 (shī)
(Collected 2023)
䷆
35” x 35”, Oil on Canvas, China, 2022A painting series submitted to exhibitions, with special lighting designs. The purpose of the exhibit is to spark discussions about the extent to which the original appearance and imagination of things are limited or rendered subjectively by human senses.
QUARTZ (2018)
4K
11:53 minutes
Independent Film
New York, United States
Film Link: https://vimeo.com/376583694
Password: Quartz2018
THE REPLICATORS
THE MIMESIS
1719 × 4096
digital painting
London, United Kingdom
2022
1719 × 4096
digital painting
London, United Kingdom
2022
QUANTUM MIND
5389 × 4093
digital painting
London, United Kingdom
2022
Light is amorphous,
waves or particles.
ARE THEY INTERDEPENDENT IN THIS SMOLDERING ALIENATION?
digital photography series
Tanzania, Africa, The Planet
2019
Read more
12 EPISODES DOCUMENTARY OF 2021 BEIJING CITY VIDEO “DREAM BEIJING”Information Office of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality
Access the Main Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOeo9klLGbQ
4K
Short Documentaries created for TikTok Promotion
Beijing, China
2021
