Lin Tianmiao was born in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China in 1961. The daughter of two artists, Lin was taught a variety of traditional crafts at a young age. It was much later in her life as a textile designer and then as a visual artist that those craft skills reemerged and evolved as materials; texture, physicality, and hand work became driving forces in her art.

She and her artist husband Wang GongXin spent time in New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s and were part of the Chinese artistic diaspora community that included Ai Weiwei, Xu Bing, Chen Yifei, Chen Kaige, and Tan Dun. Lin returned to China in 1995 when she began to create art. Today, she lives and works in Beijing.

Lin Tianmiao is only one of a handful of female artists in China who has maintained a high profile on the international art scene. Her work is included in the collections of museums such as the Brooklyn Museum, the International Center of Photography, and The Museum of Modern Art.