Dora Lam is an interdisciplinary artist. Her practice dwells in thresholds—treating ambivalence not as a condition of lack, but as a generative state. Through ephemeral materials like airbrushing and flocking, and through formal strategies of suspension and repetition, her paintings hold incompatible states in tension: visibility and anonymity, care and violence, the spiritual and the sinister. By sustaining ambiguity rather than resolving it, the work asks who gets seen and under what conditions. Currently she moves across painting and social practice.
Dora has been Resident Artist at the Jazz Cafe Camden since 2019. She is a community organiser and has been a trustee at ESEA Community Centre and co-founder of the ESEA Archives book club.
Dora is currently pursuing her Masters in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2026. She is a Cass Art and QEST scholar.
EXHIBITIONS/TALKS/WORKSHOPS
2025
Cultural Hackney: Let’s Create! Workshop Programme Curator and Producer, ESEA Community Centre
Cabinet of Curiosities Artist-facilitator (Lauderdale House) - Parliament Hill School
Resident Artist (Live Painting) - Ongoing since 2019 - The Jazz Cafe
2024
Overcoming Blocks - Bow Skills Workshop - Bow Arts
‘Some time some place’ Live Paintings, Solo Exhibition - Cromwell Tower, Barbican Estate
‘ESEA Critical Directions’ Panel discussion - City University
Game Night with ESEA Community Centre, Our Street Late - Barbican Centre
2023
ALTAR-NATIVE Group Exhibition and Workshop - Ugly Duck Courage Yard
ALTAR-NATIVE Rhythm & Ritual Workshop - Ugly Duck Courage Yard
No Place Like Home Panel discussion - Museum of the Home
The Navigator Project Chapter 1: Methods of Documenting a Journey Exhibition - Fitzrovia Gallery
HERITAGE, RESEARCH AND COLLABORATION WITH ESEA COMMUNITIES Talk - Tate Liverpool
Uncovering Vietnamese Archives Workshops and Live Exhibition - Museum of the Home
QMH Arts Afternoons - Queen Mary’s Hospital Roehampton
Not Too Sweet - London Short Film Festival screening - Institute of Contemporary Art
2021
Grayson Perry’s Art Club Exhibition (Dec 2021) - Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
WE/MAKE/DO — Bridging the generation gap (Online workshops) in partnership with Hackney Chinese Community Services
Made In Chinatown: Intangible Cultural Heritage through food practices, China Exchange London Chinatown
DRUMMER, WARRIOR, STORYTELLER - Touring screening and exhibition (collaboration with Apex Zero)
Lingua Franker — A Shiftists Group Exhibition - Hoxton 253, London
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2025
Cass Art Scholarship Award
Walnut Works Foundry - Lost wax casting mini residency
2023
Uncovering Vietnamese Archives Artist in residence, Museum of the Home
2021
Artist in residence, China Exchange (London Chinatown)
Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) Award
EDUCATION
2026 - MA Painting (Royal College of Art)
2021 - Post-graduate Diploma (Royal College of Art) - Distinction
2005 - BSc Business Computing Systems (City University, London) - First Class (Hons)