Julie Lai (b. 1998 , Chicago, IL) lives and works in Portland, OR. She is a ceramicist and MULTI-DISciplinary artist focused on themes of movement and contrast. Her mediums include wheel-throwing, sculpture, ILLUSTRATION, oil and acrylic painting, and digital art.

Julie builds dimensions in her work by using a collage of mediums and imagery to capture personal anecdotes. Each piece, individually and as a collective, represents a self-portrait, one that contains the specificity of the personal experience while mirroring a communal story. She finds beauty in the juxtaposition between subject and object, mind and matter. There is always a narrative beneath the surface that the audience wouldn’t typically expect.

The use of black and red line-work on light clay bodies further pushes the visual of contrast; her background in physics and data science shine through in her figurative and graphical illustrations; “Dream House as Vase” tells her story of sexual abuse, shame, and healing inspired by one of her personal favorite books In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado; “Notes of a Crocodile” is inspired by the book by Qiu Miaojin which highlights her queer and Taiwanese identity. These works ultimately capture her shameless reclamation of her abusive past, cultural roots, self-respect, and femininity.