Dr. Sam Lam Art

“Amsterdam”-Acrylic on canvas “paired” by Dr. Sam Lam

Despite my trip to Amsterdam this year (2009) for a course, this painting was done a long time ago at the conception of my building.  It hangs prominently at the front office reception because I love it so very much.  I love the two shades of blue color that are inverted.  I somehow really like to hang two paintings next to each other as a visual pair.  To me, it is a far richer experience than a single canvas can convey.  I create all of my works on Adobe Illustrator first as my way of sketching before I actually commit paintbrush to canvas.  The precision of the lines you see were done with taping/masking with bleed throughs controlled by painting the background color down first to seal in the color so that second color does not pass under the tape.  This is very akin to my favorite artist Sol Lewitt’s method of working.  The images were projected from a computer then taped off as described above.  I also love the background color which is a beige burlap that really sets off the blue very well.  Like anything in art, it is hard to explain why it works, but it simply does.  Why Amsterdam as a title for this work of art?  Who knows, except they look sort of like flowers, which that city is famous for.  Perhaps not tulips but my own fantastical representation of that city.

Amsterdam-Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36″ paired

“Eight Pillars” Acrylic Painting by Dr Sam Lam.

Like most paintings I have done, I start with a computer as the source of my designing work.  Using Illustrator, I worked with basic grid design and color work to accomplish what I was trying to achieve with this painting.  If you see the two colors of rust and mars yellow are similar enough that they form a unified color block like a pillar but with closer inspection reveal an alternating pattern that can be pleasing to the eye.  The same technique is applied to the dark gray and silver which are of the same color family but used as an alternating element.  I tend to use a lot of metallics and grays as neutral color elements to preserve the tone on tone emphasis that I have for most of my work.  In fact, they are in essence another element of tone on tone.  Somehow too much color on a single canvas disturbs my zen aesthetic.  If you come to my office, you will see another painting that uses deep reds in a similar fashion but still very different from this painting that hangs on an adjacent wall and acts as a pair.  They both hang in the private back office private reception area.  The title comes from a play on Lawrence of Arabia’s The Seven Pillars of Wisdom that I read as an undergraduate history major at Princeton University.  This strong grid work reflects my stern earlier efforts at painting, which have given way to a more playful painterliness that still retains strong elements of control and geometry.

Eight Pillars -Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 60″

“La Reve” Acrylic on Canvas Painting by Dr Sam Lam

This painting was originally paired with another similar orange and yellow work but the latter has been removed and replaced with television monitors in my main reception area.  Again, you see all the familiar elements that captivate me:  tone on tone work, square grid work, geometry with a hint of disorder, and as mentioned previously paired paintings of different color expressions.  The title simply means the dream in French, and I felt that this breaking apart of blue color in the center was reminiscent for me of a dream.  As you see the light blue forms the consistent background element and the dark blue in the center is relatively uniformly distributed from left to right.  The medium dark blue is more heavily concentrated on the far right and breaks gently away toward the left side of the painting to reveal more light colored blue squares.  Even though I mentioned that this painting symbolizes a dream to me, I would like to emphasize that these paintings should be viewed purely as abstractions that provide visual pleasure.  Any deeper meaning behind them does not exist, and titles were appended to them simply out of desire to have a title.  In choosing a title, I did begin to create representational allusions simply for a matter of fun and also perhaps as a starting point for your own imagination as you enjoy the painting.

Le Reve-Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72″