Nyo Jinyong Lian is a Chinese artist who recently graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Paris. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, her series Trust Me explores social norms and power dynamics with humor and strangeness.
She creates what she calls “autonomous fables,” staging women she encounters in Paris, Shanghai, and New York. Her images subvert ordinary logic and embrace the absurd, revealing spaces where new dialogues can emerge. Far from being escapist, imagination and surrealism become for her tools of clarity and social critique.
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Her work has been exhibited internationally, most recently at Les Rencontres d’Arles (2025), the InCadaques Photo Festival with Fisheye Gallery, Tianfu Image Art Center (2025) in Sichuan, China, and the PhotoSaintGermain (2024) in Paris,
She was awarded the Jeunes Talents 2025 Prize (Les Agents Associés) and received the Grand Prize at 212 Photography Istanbul 2025. In the same year, she was selected for the LensCulture Editors’ Pick and shortlisted for the Woman Photographers Grant by PhMuseum.
Her debut artist book Trust Me (2025), shortlisted for the Henri Cartier-Bresson Self-Published Photobook Award and featured by Booooooom Magazine, has been shown at major photography festivals in Europe and the United States.
Lian currently lives and works in Paris.
For prints, exhibitions, or commissions,
please email lianjinyong.paris@gmail.com
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She creates what she calls “autonomous fables,” staging women she encounters in Paris, Shanghai, and New York. Her images subvert ordinary logic and embrace the absurd, revealing spaces where new dialogues can emerge. Far from being escapist, imagination and surrealism become for her tools of clarity and social critique.
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Her work has been exhibited internationally, most recently at Les Rencontres d’Arles (2025), the InCadaques Photo Festival with Fisheye Gallery, Tianfu Image Art Center (2025) in Sichuan, China, and the PhotoSaintGermain (2024) in Paris,
She was awarded the Jeunes Talents 2025 Prize (Les Agents Associés) and received the Grand Prize at 212 Photography Istanbul 2025. In the same year, she was selected for the LensCulture Editors’ Pick and shortlisted for the Woman Photographers Grant by PhMuseum.
Her debut artist book Trust Me (2025), shortlisted for the Henri Cartier-Bresson Self-Published Photobook Award and featured by Booooooom Magazine, has been shown at major photography festivals in Europe and the United States.
Lian currently lives and works in Paris.
For prints, exhibitions, or commissions,
please email lianjinyong.paris@gmail.com