Image: Chefas Projects, Portland
Chefas Projects is presenting 'Mercurial,' a new solo exhibition by sculptural artist Dan Lam, on view from September 18 through October 17, 2026. An opening reception is scheduled for Friday, September 18, 2026, from 5 to 8 p.m.
Bringing together more than twenty new works, the exhibition introduces a heightened metallic sensibility to Lam's singular sculptural language. Its surfaces suggest chrome, liquid metal and something less readily identifiable, placing the objects somewhere between matter and mutation.
Metallic hues course across the works' surfaces, emphasizing their bulbous contours, dripping edges and seemingly unstable forms. Chrome-like finishes catch and distort their surroundings, allowing the sculptures to shift with changes in light, perspective and proximity.
Known for sculptures that occupy an uncanny space between the organic and the artificial, Lam approaches form as something fluid, seductive and alive. In Lam's hands, sculpture becomes less a fixed thing than an encounter: part organism, part object and part fantasy.
The works activate the imagination through an intuitive visual language based not on representation but on sensation, while their exaggerated forms, seductive surfaces and ambiguous materiality encourage viewers to project, imagine and participate.
