Now open: Jaffa Lam, “Chasing an Elusive Nature” Axel Vervoordt Gallery is pleased to present “Chasing an Elusive Nature”, a solo exhibition by @jaffalam (b. 1973), the first Hong Kong artist in the gallery’s roster. Lam’s new works are presented in dialogue with some of her earlier pieces, showing her long-standing anchorage in local heritage, history, and explorations into the city’s collective power. Visitors are also invited to sit on one of Lam’s installations, “Lost Limb Chair” (2022), a hybrid chair typical of her work that interweaves natural and industrial recycled materials. For a long time, the artist has favoured functional pieces of art and she has created a series of organic chairs and benches, mainly based on abandoned pieces of furniture and carved out of found wooden planks. Here, a factory spotlight is transformed into a personal moon that casts its rays above the seat, bringing a piece of night – or flow of dreams, into the room. It also functions like a guiding light for lost people and migrants. The wooden and concrete base of the chair is indeed mounted on three legs and one wheel, crystalizing the hardships to leave one’s place, or the tensions between the desire to flee and the heaviness of one’s own culture and past. The moon, although artificial, aims to ease this path. Like a treasure, a tiny landscape and a secret rock are hidden inside one of the armchairs. A migrant herself, Lam has always opted for light materials or movable items. Praising the idea of a mobile identity, she does not wish to be bound to any specific territory, yet she reflects on the complicated contradictions between this aspiration to freedom and the deep need for a private shelter that one can call home.