SoMad is pleased to present a selection of six works by Yi Hsuan Lai, the Taiwanese-born, New York-based artist and 2025 SoMad Artist-in-Resident, for the 45th edition of The Photography Show presented by The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD)
Through a dynamic interplay of sculptural and staged photography, Lai’s works blur the boundaries between image and object as they probe and tease the limits of materiality, embodiment, perception, and virtual tactility. The works seem to twist and torque themselves into being as the artist places materials in contorted, almost acrobatic configurations over barely visible bodies. Together, they hold difficult poses that push against the limits of their own forms.
Though often fragmented or partially obscured, the figures represented are self-portraits. The materials Lai uses are all found: repurposed items salvaged from the trash or quotidian scraps. This gathering process carries personal and cultural significance for Lai, whose use of discarded material reflects an ongoing engagement with the immigrant experience. Through connecting with these materials, Lai builds a sense of belonging to the land. Through gestures of repair, reassembly, and recontextualization, these remnants accrue new purpose and presence, hinting at the improvisational creativity inherent in Lai’s own sense of self creation.
Tensed, uneven, and unsettled, Lai’s process animates each work from within, their undulating rhythms evoking a sense of breathing or uncannily returning your gaze. Thus, photographic layers do not operate in service of representation, but rather index the pulse and complexity of the body. These effects bring us beyond a single picture plane that asks us to visually navigate a billowing architecture whose cavities and extensions recall both bodily interiors and sculptural voids. As these works engage three-dimensional form,Lai’s work invites viewers to move between optical and physical forms, image and body, material and meaning, to witness how the photographic form can be displaced and reconfigured into a precarious balancing of various materials. These works inhabit the spaces in between and linger in the fissures and folds where the body, with its instabilities, transforms.
Lai’s work invites viewers to move between optical and physical forms, image and body, material and meaning, to witness how the photographic form can be displaced and reconfigured into a precarious balancing of various materials. These works inhabit the spaces in between and linger in the fissures and folds where the body, with its instabilities, transforms.
ABOUT YI HSUAN LAI
Yi Hsuan Lai (b. 1988, Taiwan) is a New York-based artist who integrates sculptural assemblages, found materials, and her body to create staged photographic works in two and three dimensions. Her practice explores themes of adaptation, uncertainty, and femininity. Lai has been awarded residency fellowships from SoMad (2025), Light Work (2024), and Vermont Studio Center (2023). Recent solo exhibitions include Rubber, Rubber at SoMad, as well as exhibitions at Gallery 456 and the NARS Foundation, with group presentations at Photo London and the Wassaic Project. A LensCulture Critics’ “Top 10 Choice” in 2022, she will attend the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in summer 2026.
