Beili Lui was born in Jilin, China in 1974. She immigrated to the United States in 1995 and graduated in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. After she received her Bachelor’s degree she attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where she got her Master’s of Fine Arts. 

Lui first became known as an artist at Art Farm, Nebraska in 2004 and since then she has received many awards. She has been featured on PBS as an artist which can be seen by most people on television.

The art which Beili creates is public art, performance, fiber art, and, drawing. Her art is quite abstract and reminds me of trees. The way in which I see these drawings as trees is because it looks like when you chop down a tree and look at the rings to see how old the tree is and I find that to be pretty.