10 March 30–april 5, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents she moved through grad school and be- yond.” But first, Lam had to convince her mother that art was a viable career path. She initially used painting as just a cre- ative outlet when earning her graphic de- sign degree at the University of North Texas, but she knew she had to take a stand by sophomore year. “I had professors who were like, ‘You HAVE to do studio arts,’ and at the time, I thought they were just being nice,” Lam says. “But after I had some time and was in grad school, [I knew] they don’t just tell that to anybody. I told my mom, and she was super upset, and we had this fight. She thought I was only doing it because it was the easy way out, but I did it because, in my gut, I knew this was right and what I needed to be doing.” Lam ultimately earned her master of fine arts from Arizona State University in 2014. After graduation, she followed her boyfriend to Midland for his job. When not teaching art appreciation at the local community col- lege, she spent her hours in studio exploration and time on a little app called Insta- gram. “My paintings were very textural and thick [in grad school],” she says. “I was still working on the wall, but I would definitely call them sculptures. At that point in time, I was us- ing polyurethane foam, which is still one of my primary materials — I’m obsessed with it. A lot of time, it was just about me exploring the material. I thought [it] was so cool. Within my own explorations, I was like, ‘How can I can push it and make it do different things?’” Inspired by artists such as James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson and Lynda Benglis, Lam also pushed her color combinations and posted the results on Instagram under @so- popomo. By 2016, local galleries and inter- national celebrities were sliding into her DMs. “This was a way of sharing my work be- cause I didn’t have the community I did in school,” she says. “Instagram had been out for a few years, but people were still getting into it. I remember my following was grow- ing. At the time, it was just like, look at these numbers inching up! This little ticker felt like a game; it didn’t feel real. Someone com- mented on one of my posts, ‘Miley Cyrus fol- lows you.’ It was like, that’s cool. Then she hit me up a few months later [for a piece].” Lam moved back to Dallas, where local out- lets such as Circuit 12 and Fort Works Art started exhibiting her work. The latter took her to Miami’s Scope Art Show, where she met Harman Hashimoto. Once gallerists were able to view Lam’s pieces in person as well as on- line, it was a game changer. “Being able to see how she makes her work [online] is such a fascinating pro- cess,” says Harman Hashi- moto. “It’s colorful and hypnotic, and that works very much in Dan’s favor be- cause that’s not necessarily true for a very amazingly talented painter. On the other end of the spectrum, when you see the work in person, people have so many questions, ‘What is it that I’m looking at? What is it made of?’ People will ask if it’s ceramic or glass. There’s nothing I like to do more than allow people to touch it be- cause it will raise the hair on the neck and make you feel something.” In the past half-decade, Lam has exhibited in galleries across the U.S., London and Swe- den, as well as at Boston’s Institute of Con- temporary Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center. But the biggest “get” in recent years is her participation in the Grapevine outpost of Meow Wolf, due to open this summer. The company’s director of artistic collab- oration, Han Santana-Sayles, was ac- quainted with Lam’s work. Still, it wasn’t until she found the artist had filled out a col- laboration form on Meow’s website that the two met. “I was shocked because she was already this high-caliber, well-known artist who would be a perfect Meow Wolf collabora- tor,” Santana-Sayles says. “I knew I wanted to see her work on a much larger scale. She’s always messing around and playing with new methodologies. It’s amazing to see her work with color combinations that don’t ex- ist in nature but feel like they should.” Lam’s piece for Meow Wolf’s fourth per- manent exhibition at the Grapevine Mills Mall soars to 16-by-16 feet, and Santana-Say- les hopes it will be the first in a long line of collaborations. “[With her sculptures] people are either delighted, and they love it, or they’re like, ‘Ew, that’s so weird, why is that here?’” Santana- Sayles says with a laugh. “I’m completely bi- ased in Dan’s favor. We don’t have a formal roster at Meow Wolf, but I see her as someone who will frequently collaborate with us. I’d love to do a bigger project in the future. That’s definitely the intention for us right now.” Lam challenges herself with materiality and scale as she moves up the artistic ladder. Having explored spikey finishes and glitter- ing Swarovski crystals, micro-mini sculp- tures and massive installations, she is now creating furniture prototypes in her Tin Dis- trict studio in West Dallas. The prices for her pieces might soar up to $20k (and climbing), but it’s also essential for Lam to make her smaller sculptures af- fordable. She periodically offers “mini drops” of little drips and phone cases on her Instagram, with the next one set for June. As she plans for that release (plus solo ex- hibitions at X in Portland in July and at Hashimoto in New York in December), she remains a one-woman show. She’s attempted to use assistants, but her only-child upbring- ing means her best work happens alone. It al- lows her to experiment, play and “go down the rabbit hole” in new and fresh directions. “I have friends who are artists who have teams of 10 or 12 people!” she says. “I’m sure there’s an energy to that which fuels them, but I can’t. I feel like I’m doing myself a disservice by handing off prep work to somebody else be- cause there are things I learn in all stages. When I start feeling too confident, I’m like, let me switch things up so I can keep challenging myself and not keep making the same thing.” That tactic will likely assure her future remains as bright as her work. “Having her work be so unique, so spe- cial, and not mass produced is so impor- tant,” Harman Hashimoto says. “She always has a very clear idea of what she wants to do, she’s always thinking about the next thing, and she never ceases to surprise. Every year she introduces a new aspect that makes it even more interesting.” Will Heron Dan Lam’s Meow Wolf installation in progress at the Grapevine Mills Mall. Kathy Tran Dan Lam from p9 “I HAD PROFESSORS WHO WERE LIKE, ‘YOU HAVE TO DO STUDIO ARTS,’ AND AT THE TIME, I THOUGHT THEY WERE JUST BEING NICE.” – DAN LAM Dan Lam works with resins in her studio.
