Guy Hepner Gallery

Dan Lam Guttation For Sale

Dan Lam
Dan Lam - Guttation, 2023, Polymer, foam, acrylic

Guttation, 2023

Polymer, foam, acrylic

8 x 6 1/2 x 5 1/2 in 20.3 x 16.5 x 14 cm

Edition

Unique

About this work

Guttation is a unique sculptural work created by Dan Lam in 2023, executed in polymer, foam, and acrylic. Measuring 8 by 6½ by 5½ inches, the work is compact in scale yet dense with conceptual and material richness. The title references a genuine biological phenomenon: guttation is the process by which plants exude water droplets from their leaves and stems under internal pressure — not through evaporation but through active, internal secretion. This botanical precision is characteristic of Lam's approach to titling, which frequently draws on scientific and natural vocabulary to frame her sculptural language. The formal logic of guttation — water pressed outward from within — is rendered with directness in Lam's material practice. Her drips and polymer extrusions are precisely the aesthetic signature of a surface secreting, of matter pushing through its own boundaries. In Guttation, these elements are organized within a compact, intimate form that makes the process visible at close range: drops suspended at the sculpture's edges, polymer growths emerging from the foam body with the inevitability of biological process. The Color Sculptures series' vivid acrylic palette gives these secreted forms an intensity that oscillates between the alluring and the viscerally strange — a charged ambivalence at the very heart of Lam's practice. Dan Lam is an American sculptor of Vietnamese ancestry who has established herself as one of the most original voices in contemporary sculpture. Her use of industrial materials — polyurethane foam, acrylic paint, and epoxy resin — to simulate organic biological process has earned her widespread critical recognition and a devoted collector base. Lam's work sits at the intersection of fine art and popular culture, reaching audiences through both gallery exhibition and digital platforms. As a unique work, Guttation is an unrepeatable encounter with the artist's practice — a singular object that distills her formal and conceptual concerns into an intimate, precisely realized form.

Price on Application

Edition & Provenance

Year
2023
Medium
Polymer, foam, acrylic
Edition
Unique

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Guttation

About Dan Lam

Dan Lam earned a BFA from the University of North Texas in 2010, followed by an MFA from Arizona State University in 2014, where she began developing the sculptural techniques that would come to define her practice.

Lam creates drippy, blob like sculptures using polyurethane foam, resin, and acrylic, often finished with auto body paint that shifts color as viewers move around the piece. Her work sits at the border of attraction and repulsion, taking cues from natural forms found in the body and the ocean while pushing them into something stranger and more excessive. Materials play a defining role in her process, and she often allows their behavior to guide the final shape of a piece rather than working from a fixed plan.

Lam's sculptures have been exhibited widely across the United States and internationally, including at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, along with shows in Paris and Munich. Her work has also reached a wide audience through social media, where her process videos and finished pieces have drawn broad public attention beyond the traditional gallery world.

Guy Hepner works with collectors seeking Dan Lam's tactile, colorful sculptural work. Contact us to discuss available inventory.

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