Dan Lam can put to rest any doubts as to whether a social media presence can launch the career of an artist.
In 2015, the Vietnamese-American artist was living in the small oil city of Midland, in the centre of the US state of Texas where “nothing was going on”, when she started posting photos of her work on Instagram.
“I would share something, and then a handful of other accounts would reshare it, and then someone commented on one of my posts that Miley Cyrus was following me,” Lam says.
“I was shocked that my work reached that far, how widespread it was, and whose eyes were on it. It was how most galleries found me.”
All of this was helped, of course, by Lam’s striking visual aesthetic.
Gloopy, drippy, trippy, technicolour sculptures in polyurethane foam treated with resin and acrylic are her stock-in-trade – including a recent 15ft by 15ft (4.6 metre by 4.6 metre) installation she describes as “looking like a rainbow melting off a wall”.
Born in the Philippines to Vietnamese parents, Lam and her family moved to Houston, Texas when she was a baby. At eight, they relocated to another Texan city, Dallas.
Lam recalls being creative since she was a child. “Those seeds have always been there.”
Much of that, she says, has been shaped by her exposure to American television.
“I was a ’90s kid, and a huge part of my after-school activities involved watching Nickelodeon,” she says of the US cable channel for children.
“I definitely see the influences in my work from that time. I had a ton of toys and sometimes when I’m in the studio creating and experimenting, I’ll have this moment when I connect back to my childhood, a recognition that a gallery piece looks like my [old] Polly Pocket,” she says, referencing the discontinued toy line.
“None of that is conscious, but it does make its way into my work.”
She sees now that there is also a part of her that subconsciously wanted to counteract the more low-key aspects of her heritage.
“Asians tend to be more reserved as people, and perhaps this expression of brightness, boldness and loudness in my work is a by-product of that.”
An only child, her decision to go to art school riled her mother.
“It was a huge point of contention between us,” she says.
“I wanted to study the arts, but my mother felt that that wouldn’t be stable, so we compromised. I agreed to get a degree in graphic design. She figured it was still creative, and I would be guaranteed to get a job. But once I started the programme, I knew it wasn’t right for me.”
She wanted art to be a form of her own personal expression.
“But the graphic design was not that. It was about catering to a client. I was at odds with it. It didn’t fit, it didn’t feel right. I had this gut instinct moment and I told my mom and she was not happy.
“We got into big fights. She thought I was lazy and wanted to take the easy path. But going into fine arts is not an easy path. It’s the least secure path. But I couldn’t not do it.”
As it turns out, Lam’s mother didn’t have to worry too much. After Lam graduated with a master’s in fine arts from Arizona State University, she moved to Midland, worked a little Instagram magic, and created a growing following of more than 480,000 and a steady career.
I worked on a huge wall and now I’m working on something tiny. There’s something really fun about shifting scale like that
Within a year, she was receiving commissions for her work.
“Now that I’ve had several years to see the evolution of my art, there is a clear lineage of how these things have evolved,” she says.
“I’ve always been drawn to bright and bold colours, but aesthetically the work shifts because it’s reflecting a process or ideas I’m interested in. I look to nature a lot for visual inspiration.”
Currently living in Dallas, Lam says that after having dipped her toe in a couple of European spots for gallery shows, she would love to show more of her work internationally.
“As far as what my work would look like, different mediums would be a part of it – I want to continue working on a big scale. Every time I do something bigger it pushes the boundary of what’s possible.”
Still, there is a practical side to her. In June, Lam will release her much-anticipated series of miniatures – basically palm-sized versions of her much larger sculptures and installations.
It’s an annual initiative for her: she sells them through her website for between US$150 and US$650 and ships them all over the world.
“I worked on a huge wall and now I’m working on something tiny. There’s something really fun about shifting scale like that,” she says.
After that, she will prepare for a solo show in Portland, in the US state of Oregon, in July, and another in New York in December.
Whether sought after by avid collectors – her larger pieces sell for between US$20,000 and US$40,000 – or the subject of fascination by curious gallery-goers, Lam says her hope is that her work will continue to inspire intrigue.
“When people see my work, I want it to spark curiosity,” she says. “I want people to wonder what it is, what it’s made of and want to know more about it.”