Yielding to Art: Huy Lam's Journey of Reflection and Balance

The artistic creations of Huy Lam have a profound healing quality. The Toronto-based artist approaches image-making and object creation as a way of understanding life and reflecting the human experience. This perspective originates from his extensive photography background, where he captured and conveyed messages through composition, light, and focus. His trained eye for visual media and sharp intuition in communication proved invaluable when Lam expanded his practice into contemporary art. In his first public gallery solo exhibition, Yield, Lam showcases a series of photocollages and sculptures that are poignant yet simple in form, offering a meditative outlook on life. They reflect Lam’s journey of coming to terms with hardship and understanding the crises plaguing the modern world.

Some elements in Lam’s work recall the tenets of Buddhism. Central to this belief system is the Four Noble Truths, which focus on the study of suffering: accepting its existence, investigating its cause, understanding its nature, and learning how to stop it. The religion emphasizes self-improvement and acquiring wisdom about the challenges and difficulties surrounding an individual. For Lam, art is part of this self-improvement journey. Having spent time in a refugee camp after his family fled Vietnam in the 1970s, he grappled with managing his emotions and reactions to the world’s provocations. For this reason, Lam aspires to create aesthetically pleasing art—he believes in the healing power of beauty.

While Buddhism may not be the direct subject of Lam’s work, the practice of meditation is an apparent influence. This is evident in his thoughtful compositions of forms, shapes, materials, and images. For example, in his 2024 collage series Take Your Pills, Lam carefully extracts images from advertisements found in wine and spirits catalogues. These images, surgically removed from their capitalist context, are then assembled into a Möbius band—a symbol of infinity. The titles of the works, such as Satisfying Your Hunger and Comfort Zone, borrow the language of pharmaceutical advertising and the self-care industry, presenting the duality of seeking the truth of human suffering. Much like remedies, Lam’s work symbolizes the “medication” that everyone, including himself, takes daily to calm our frantic and anxious minds. The circular motion in these works marks a departure from Lam’s earlier, more linear style. He even customized his radius cutter to create the sharp oval cut-outs, highlighting his resourcefulness and inventiveness as a self-taught artist. 

Similar to how he discovered his passion for photography, Lam acquired wood and metalworking skills through the necessity of creative curiosity. He finds meditation in negotiating with and yielding to the needs and characteristics of hard materials. In recent years, he has created several floor and wall sculptures using wood, brass, stainless steel, and, most recently, gravity. Lam emphasizes materiality and process through this body of work, illustrating a personal practice that fosters a deep awareness of self, actions, and consequences.

When discussing the creation of two dynamic hanging sculptures, She Awaited Her Fate with Equanimity and Seeking Grace, Lam recalls the labour-intensive process of operating industrial tools and machines to bend and cut metal bars, steel components, and aluminum wafers into aesthetically pleasing and balanced nuclei. His experimentation with new techniques reflects his ongoing practice of humility and restraint, softening his approach as part of a broader self-improvement process. As a result, Lam often allows the materials themselves to dictate the final size and scale of the artwork. The meditative quality of Lam’s new sculptures stems from his ability to relinquish control and let the materials take on the forms they desire. The geometric forms in the sculptures act as counterbalances, enhancing the sense of equilibrium.

Lam's artistic journey is deeply intertwined with his personal history and philosophy. His work, influenced by meditative practices, serves as both a reflection of and a response to the challenges of the modern world. Through his thoughtful compositions and material choices, Lam seeks to create a sense of balance and healing for himself and his audience. His ability to relinquish control and let materials guide his creative process showcases his technical skills and underscores his commitment to self-improvement and emotional understanding. Lam’s art, whether through sculptural pieces or photocollages, resonates with a profound awareness of human suffering and offers a meditative space for reflection and contemplation.

Tak Pham

Tak Pham is a Vietnamese contemporary art curator and writer. He is curator at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, Alberta, Treaty 7 territory. Pham holds an M.F.A. in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University and a B.A. Hons. from Carleton University. He has curated exhibitions and organized curatorial projects for the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Contemporary Calgary, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Varley Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, and Nuit Blanche Toronto, among others. His writings and reviews have appeared in Canadian Art, C Magazine, ESPACE art actuel, esse arts + opinions, GalleriesWest, The Brooklyn Rail, ArtAsiaPacific and Hyperallergic. In 2023, Pham was awarded the Hnatyshyn Foundation-Fogo Island Arts Young Curator Residency.