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Fiona K. Lau is a Sacramento-based painter whose work explores the relationships of land, environment, and belonging. Born in British Hong Kong and raised in Canada, she worked extensively in environmental pollution research and international public health. Her practice is deeply influenced by experiences of shifting cultures and a background in scientific training, creating layered works that bridge different realms of experience to reveal tensions and hidden constructs.
Lau's work has been exhibited in Seattle, Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, and internationally in Japan and Canada and is featured in public collections in Washington and Georgia. She has completed artist residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists' Residency, and Verge Center for the Arts in the US; OCAD University in Toronto, Canada; and AiR Yamanashi in Kofu, Japan. Lau is the recipient of the 2025 Creative Growth Fellowship awarded by the City of Sacramento's Office of Arts and Culture and is a member of Axis Gallery in Sacramento. |
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work explores themes of displacement, métissage, and belonging—questions that arise from time spent navigating disparate cultures and environments. This sense of rootlessness requires constant translation and adaptation, fueling my curiosity about how changing conditions are processed and mediated through images, language, and memory.
Drawing from both Eastern and Western traditions of picture-making, I investigate methods and approaches to rendering space, atmosphere, and mark-making through experimentation across drawing, painting, and printmaking. I am increasingly interested in how time and memory shape the work—how their passage informs not only what we remember but how we come to belong (or fail to belong) in a place. This interest manifests through processes of layering, accumulation, and erasure across different media and disciplines.
Through this interweaving of techniques and references, I create works that exist in the liminal spaces between belonging and alienation, exploring possibilities of understanding and connection across perceived boundaries.
My work explores themes of displacement, métissage, and belonging—questions that arise from time spent navigating disparate cultures and environments. This sense of rootlessness requires constant translation and adaptation, fueling my curiosity about how changing conditions are processed and mediated through images, language, and memory.
Drawing from both Eastern and Western traditions of picture-making, I investigate methods and approaches to rendering space, atmosphere, and mark-making through experimentation across drawing, painting, and printmaking. I am increasingly interested in how time and memory shape the work—how their passage informs not only what we remember but how we come to belong (or fail to belong) in a place. This interest manifests through processes of layering, accumulation, and erasure across different media and disciplines.
Through this interweaving of techniques and references, I create works that exist in the liminal spaces between belonging and alienation, exploring possibilities of understanding and connection across perceived boundaries.
