IT'S JUST A NUMBER

Visual artist Jaffa Lam received commercial success later in life. At 49, she gained representation from Axel Vervoordt Gallery, as well as her first commercial gallery show. Here, she reflects on her career, her site-specific work and why she’s thankful for the “angels” around her

- Tara Sobti

I moved to Hong Kong from mainland China with my parents when I was 12 years old. I loved art and sport. I knew I had an interest in art in secondary school. I learnt drawing as an extracurricular activity when I was 11 years old. I was not very good, but I won “First in Form” for visual arts almost every year in secondary school in Hong Kong. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop once I start to draw. I think maybe I found my self-esteem and confidence from it. Later, I studied in the Department of Fine Arts at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where I got my bachelor of arts, master of fine arts and postgraduate diploma in art education.

After teaching in a secondary school for a few months [as part of a requirement to get her post-graduate diploma in art education], it was clear to me that I wanted to be an artist rather than a teacher. I couldn’t stand the school hierarchy system, the boring routine of teaching and the standardised teaching plans that I needed to follow. I needed a way out. Making art was the only thing I knew how to do other than teaching, so I began my freelance journey after graduating from university in 2000.

My artwork is inspired mainly by the social issues around me. For example, when the garment industry shifted from Hong Kong to mainland China in the 1990s, a lot of workers were laid off. I met those workers in 2008 and started to make