Artist Bio: 

Cindy Yan Lam (she/her) is a Canadian artist & papermaker based in Toronto. Her current practice focuses on working with handmade paper as a medium. 

Lam holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Falmouth University, UK. In 2024 and 2025 she travelled to Niigata, Japan to study traditional washi (paper) making under the tutelage of Master Papermaker, Hiroaki Imai. She has exhibited locally and internationally. 

When she is not making art, you will find her exploring the residential streets, parks, and ravines of Toronto with her two beloved Samoyed dogs aka her studio mates. 

Artist Statement:

Lam explores themes of slowness and the passage of time through her process driven practice. Her preferred mediums of hand papermaking combined with stitching are highly tactile and require time in their development. Lam’s work is heavily influenced by her daily walking practice where she attunes to the many non-human lifeforms, we share our planet with. 

This exhibit invites the audience on a quiet walk to consider paper’s materiality as an antidote to the countless hours many of us spend in front of screens. In an era filled with fleeting digital images, Lam believes paper’s slowness, tactility and permanence brings reprieve and restoration. Similarly, Walking, like paper, is perceived as basic and unsophisticated in a time where we travel via fast-moving machines. Her work reveals their interconnectedness and aims to counter the frenetic pace of our digitized age, where faster and louder is often deemed better.