In the project, I combine the medium of photography and sculptures to create both photographic and sculptural assemblage. I use fleshy Sculpey clay to build up altered and fragmented bodies as my subjects, aiming to create a dialogue between the ambiguous nature of the objects and the space depicted in photographs- photography is the pictorial representation of mental states.
​
​
In the project, I combine the medium of photography and sculptures to create both photographic and sculptural assemblage. I use fleshy Sculpey clay to build up altered and fragmented bodies as my subjects, aiming to create a dialogue between the ambiguous nature of the objects and the space depicted in photographs- photography is the pictorial representation of mental states.
​
​
A cactus
in the Chimney
Project Description
​SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024
Ongoing Narratives- Go Left, Go Right or Go to The Other Side, Gallery 456, New York, NY
Gut Feeling, NARS Foundation project space, New York, NY
2020
Anonymous Town, SPRING/BREAK Art Show New York, NY
Body Language, Deer Studio New York, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
A Porous Vessel, United Contemporary, Toronto, Canada
2023
Portraits Beyond Faces, FLOOR_ Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Photo London, Somerset House, London, UK
In / Between, curated by Yanira Castro and Martita Abril, New York Live Arts, New York, NY
Hybridity, ANTE curatorial, curated by Audra Verona Lambert, Brooklyn, NY
Paroxysm, curated by Alison Pirie, Westbeth Gallery, New York, NY
2022
Lonely Rock, Self portraiture, curated by James McGrik, Untitled Art Fair Miami, FL
Today is Yesterday's Tomorrow, PHMuseum Photo Festival, Bologna, Italy
Body Embodiment Digital Self, iidrr, New York, NY
Smart Objects, Flattened Images, curated by Kelda Van Patten, Well Well Project, Portland, OR
Between Here and Now in conjunction with The Vantage points, South Street Seaport Art Space, New
York, NY
A Body: Figure and Flesh, Floor_ Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
2021
Homecoming, James Kerney, Campus Gallery Trenton, NJ
Kitsch, Camp, VAE Raleigh, Raleigh, NC
UN/MUTE 10002 residency, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York, NY
We Become Present, J&M studio, Brooklyn, NY
If you Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now, Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY
TLPS, Lydian Stater online
Do-until loop paradise, SVA Curatorial Practice
2020
Seasonal Repression, Field projects, New York, NY
The Things in Itself, NARS Foundation, New York, NY
LUCID , Carrie Able gallery group show, New York, NY
In Visible Spaces, Here Art New York, NY
Cold Heels: Covid-19 Edition, SHIM Art Network (virtual)
2019
Break A Leg, Sugar gallery, Fayetteville, AR
WONDER FOTO Day, Taipei, Taiwan
Escape from, Escape to, SVA Chelsea gallery New York, NY
​
RESIDENCIES
2025 Centre SAGAMIE, Alma, Quebec
2024 Light Work Artist in Residence, Syracuse, NY
2023 Vermont Studio Center Residency, Johnson, VT
Atlantic Center for the Arts, FL
2022 MASS MoCA artist in residence North Adams, MA
2021 Un/Mute 10002 collective online residency
2020 International Residency Program, NARS Foundation Brooklyn, NY
​
SELECTED GRANTS / AWARDS
2023 NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship
2022 LensCulture Critic’s Top 10 Choice
2020 Summer 2020 Surreal Competition first prize, Mobius Photo
Alumni Scholarship Award, SVA Alumni Society
SVA Scheimpflug Award, School of Visual Arts
2018-2020
Alice Beck-Odette Scholarship, School of Visual Arts
WORK FEATURED / INTERVIEW
-JoySauce, These Asian Artists Are Tired Of Being The "Good Girls", 2024
-Art Spiel. Yi Hsuan Lai. Objects, Bodies, Things at Gallery 456, 2024
- WHITEHOT Magazine, March, 2024
-Shoutout LA, June, 2023
-FORECAST 2023 Honorable Mention, SF CAMERAWORK, April, 2023
-WU Magazine, Issue 119, April, 2023
-Fraction Magazine, Issue 160, September, 2022
-Wassaic Project, Joe Brommel, “If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now Interview”, July, 2021
-LRT, Erika Paulauskė, “Only LRT.It. Vilnius and New Yor City-based artists connected by the body in art: anonymity changes the body”, May 8, 2021
-Musée Magazine, Photo Journal Monday: Corporeal Signal, March 22, 2021
-Musée Magazine, Weekend Portfolio: A Cactus in the chimney, Jan 15, 2021
-Pop Photo, Jeanette D. Moses, The best thing we saw in Spring Break Art Show, March 5, 2020 -Quaranzine, Volume III, August, 2020
-The Quarantine Times, Lori Waxman, Covid Reviews: Ana Prvacki, April Gertler, MoBella Russo, Suzanne McClelland, Yi Hsuan Lai, Erik Ruin, July 18, 2020
EDUCATION
2020 School of Visual Arts New York, NY
MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media
2014 National Yunlin University of Science & Technology Yunlin, Taiwan
MFA in Visual Communication Design
2010 Shih Hsin University Taipei, Taiwan
BFA in English