Kong Lingnan was born in 1983 in Jilin Province, China. She received a bachelor's degree from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and a master's degree from Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. She currently lives and works in Beijing.
Her early works portray a world of uniformity-one in which the self and the universe are unified-featuring scenes such as islands and constellations that take on a neon-like glow. She contemplates the human condition and transformation from an observer's perspective, approaching spirituality and culture through individual experience. In recent years, influenced by the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung and her interest in mysticism, she seeks to visualize the hidden bonds between humanity and the unseen world, shifting her practice toward an exploration of the inner realm-its contradictions and microcosms, its fire and turbulence-in search of the fruits of the subconscious. Focusing on the transmutation of spiritual symbols in alchemy, Kong Lingnan's nuanced, small-scale oil paintings on wood offer psychological portraits of friends and imprints of inner landscapes, tracing both the sorrow and joy of personal emotion.
