Photograph courtesy of Andrew James Wies.
Michelle Shengyu Li (b. Vancouver, Canada) is an interdisciplinary artist based between Vancouver, Canada and Baltimore, USA. Through sculpture, installation, and photo, her practice speculates belief and belonging in tensions to land, diaspora, (in)visibility, and the sacredness of life/death. Often working with wood, paper, wax, and living organisms, many of her pieces are transitory bodies that mediate the fluidity of eternal elements like fire, wind, desire, and migration.
Li’s work has been featured across Baltimore and New York including exhibitions at Area 405, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and BioBAT Art Space as well as Issue 21 of BmoreArt: “The Future.” She is a 2026 Janet & Walter Sondheim Semifinalist and a recipient of the Carolyn J. Springborn Fellowship at the Haystack Mountain School of Craft.
Contact: michellesylistudio@gmail.com
Instagram: @michellesyli
Li’s work has been featured across Baltimore and New York including exhibitions at Area 405, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and BioBAT Art Space as well as Issue 21 of BmoreArt: “The Future.” She is a 2026 Janet & Walter Sondheim Semifinalist and a recipient of the Carolyn J. Springborn Fellowship at the Haystack Mountain School of Craft.
Contact: michellesylistudio@gmail.com
Instagram: @michellesyli
Selected Works
2026
Eternal Horizon: The Sunrise and Sunset
Living Records
2025
The Sunset / Eternal Horizon
Still Fire
Bona Fide
2024
Instrument
Long Time (Ginkgo)
Flight Speculation I — Exhaustion
Flight Speculation II — Anchoring
To Bury a Bird
1+1+1+1+1
In Response to Explanation
Visualization of a Wish
2023
“god’s eye” / “god in a seed” I
“god’s eye” / “god in a seed” II
Meditations I — my god is dark
Untitled (Portrait)
noon
First Touch
How To Make A Wish
still life
2022
Between Blood, Breath and Sea
(血脉，不息，守望)
Selected Exhibitions
Where the Light Blows (Solo Exhibition, 2024)
If Birds Could Fly: On Speculative Futurisms (Curatorial, 2024)