Artist’s Statement

“My Curated Life” - A Solo Exhibition 9 February to 27 March 2026

My Curated Life is a visual reflection of decades spent observing the beauty found in art, nature, people, and everyday objects.
Join the ArtSHINE community for My Curated Life, a solo exhibition celebrating lived moments, treasured objects, and quiet encounters that capture the emotional pull of beauty through memory, travel, and everyday life.



Exhibition Overview: My Curated Life

My Curated Life is a visual memoir—an intimate gathering of moments, objects, and encounters accumulated over decades of living with attention, curiosity, and care. It reflects the belief that to truly see the world is to cultivate sensitivity: to notice beauty not only in art and nature, but in the quiet poetry of everyday life.

This exhibition is the culmination of a lifelong habit of observing—through travel, conversations, relationships, and the objects that pass through our hands and hearts. Each artwork emerges from a process of journaling, reflection, and emotional translation, where lived experiences are re-composed into new visual narratives. Sentimental gifts, florals, collected objects, and personal symbols appear not as still subjects, but as carriers of memory, meaning, and presence.

At its core, My Curated Life is about connection. The works explore how certain images, places, or objects hold a gravitational pull—an inexplicable force that draws us in, lingers with us, and becomes part of who we are. Van Lam seeks to recreate that initial moment of attraction: the feeling when something first captures your attention and quietly stays with you.

There is a continuity here with the artist’s broader practice—an extension of movement, emotion, and storytelling—where art becomes both archive and offering. These works do not aim to document life as it was, but to honour how it is remembered, felt, and cherished. Each piece is a curated fragment of beauty, gathered not for perfection, but for resonance.

Presented during the Lunar New Year Sydney Festival, My Curated Life also speaks to renewal, reflection, and the cyclical nature of memory and identity. It invites viewers to slow down, to recognise their own collected moments, and to consider the quiet power of what we choose to hold close.

This exhibition is not just a display of artworks—it is an invitation: to look, to remember, and to curate your own life with intention.

The exhibition runs: 9 February - 27 March 2026

Opening Celebration: 6 pm on Wednesday, February 18, 2026



RSVP FOR THE OPENING CELEBRATION:

Please select the "Opening Celebration: 6 pm on Wednesday, February 18, 2026"

VENUE: Community Bank Darling Square Shop NE12, Little Pier Street, Haymarket, NSW 2000