Tina Lam

Artist Statement

I create sculptures, installations, land-art interventions and performances informed phylosophy, science, and literature. I am interested in the physical and metaphorical entanglements between the human, the beyond-human, and the unknown. I venture into natural environments to hand-mold black aluminum foil onto boulders, branches and root systems, collecting records of the planet’s surface as one would graze a body’s: its skin, folds, wrinkles and arteries, in constant turbulent transformation arising from its pressurized core to its uppermost continental stratas, continually scarred and mending. I further convert my land-art objects by merging them with materials ranging in translucency from paper to steel, imbuing them with silence, solace and strength. Through the slow process of touch, I commune with the physical world and the elementary forces that assail and sculpt the planet, aiming to elicit awe and meditative introspection as a means to reunite with the very same mysterious cosmic forces that shape our humanhood.

Tina Lam. Cosmic Cues: Magnetoscape Cycle 1. Sculptural installation with black alumnium foil, steel wire, Japanese paper, marble. 2024. Gallery dimensions 18.4 x 22.6 x 14.5 feet. Photo Credits Andrew Schwartz.

Bio

I was born in Montréal, Canada, and raised in urban regions by Cambodian-Chinese refugees. Since youth, I have been both fascinated and perplexed by the mysteries of the natural world; I have continued to seek to engage with them methodically through the sciences and somatically through the arts. I am a graduate of Cornell University (MFA), Concordia University (BFA) and McGill University (PhD), and received many grants including from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Quebec Council for the Arts. I have attended residencies including Shandaken: Storm King, NARS Foundation, Willapa Bay AIR, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and the Carving Studio & Sculpture Center.

www.tinalamstudio.com