Neon Parc

Spencer Lai (b. 1991, Malaysia) is an Australian-Chinese artist currently based in Berlin. Working across sculpture, drawing, installation, and expanded painting, his practice explores themes of identity, desire, psychology, and commodity culture.

Influenced by architecture, design, and fashion, Lai’s work blends Eastern and Western aesthetic traditions, incorporating personal memories, fantasy, and automatic mark-making. Decorative materials, craft-based processes, and unconventional media play a central role in Lai’s practice. His work frequently engages with cultural detritus, reconfiguring found materials and imagery, reflecting on the intersections of value, personhood, and the unconscious. His practice embraces both playfulness and unease, exploring the duality of beauty and abjection within contemporary and traditional cultures.

Spencer Lai has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Impressions’ Mackintosh Lane, London, 2025; ‘Modes’, Neon Parc, 2024; ‘Let us be silent […], Neon Parc, 2023; ‘Academy for the Sensitive Arts’, Theta, New York, 2022; ‘A Patience Game’ with Jürgen Baumann, Holden Garage, Berlin, 2022; ‘Oriental Painting.’, Neon Parc, Melbourne, 2022; ‘buddhaminefield’, Ge Hinnom Small Group Love, South London, 2021; ‘Air becomes metallic […]’, Kimberly-Klark, New York, 2018.

Recent group exhibitions include: ‘The Possibilities are Immense’, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne, 2024; ‘All Good Things’, Hulias, Oslo, 2024; ‘At Home with Painting’, School of Art Gallery, Sydney, 2024; ‘Backwash’, Drill Hall Gallery, 2023; ‘Menagerié’, Asbestos, 2023; ‘You’re Finally Awake!’, Theta, New York, 2022; ‘The body speaks before it even talks’, 99%, Melbourne, 2022; ‘Comfort the Afflicted’, Envy, Wellington, 2022; ‘1991’ Neon Parc, Melbourne (2020); ‘Dress Rehearsal (with Rare Candy/Centre for Style)’, 9th Berlin Biennale, Berlin (2016); ‘TarraWarra Biennale: Endless Circulation (with Jake Swinson, Jessie Kiely, Fayen d’Evie and Matthew Linde)’, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria (2016).

Lai’s work is included in the Artbank collection, Australia; Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra; and private collections throughout Australia and the United States.