Dora Lam is a British-Chinese artist based in London.
Her work engages silence as both subject and structure, shaped by the tension between being seen and being heard. Painting becomes a form of fugitivity - not an escape from history, but from the compulsion to name, fill and fix.
The paintings begin on dark grounds, where figures emerge into hard-edged, geometric fields that hold without resolving. Drawn from public and personal archives, the women in her paintings appear suspended - partially visible, partially withheld.
Rendered with an airbrush, each face acquires a skin physically untouched by any tool. To paint them with a shameless accuracy is the closest Dora can get to knowing them, while confronting everything she cannot know.
Dora is currently completing a Masters in Painting at the Royal College of Art supported by the Cass Art Scholarship Award. She is shortlisted for the Chadwell Award 2026.
EXHIBITIONS/TALKS/WORKSHOPS
2026
‘Ongoing’ Group Exhibition - Noho Showrooms
‘Entanglements’ Group Exhibition - Annex by Koppel Projects
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 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
2026
Chadwell Award shortlist
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)