Heiyi Tam is a Hong Kong-born artist based in London, UK. Shaped by a childlike way of seeing, her practice inhabits the space between the familiar, the nonsensical and the imagined, exploring the absurd possibilities of the ordinary.

Tam approaches painting as play, building her paintings through cycles of addition and erasure, layering washes, gestural marks, and recurring organic forms. This interplay of concealment and accumulation becomes a form of discovery, as unexpected forms and associations emerge.

Overheard conversations, half-remembered dreams and fragments from her diaries feed the associations that run through Tam's paintings and their titles. Playful, poetic and sometimes oddly specific, the titles introduce unlikely scenarios, from soft bites of rubber ducks and birthday lakes to whether corn kernels can grow flowers. They bring a fabulist sensibility to the paintings, setting the specificity of language against the ambiguity of abstraction.

Tam has earned international recognition as a finalist for the 2026 Gilchrist-Fisher Award, exhibiting at Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London. She was shortlisted for the 14th Edition of The Signature Art Prize and was also a finalist for The Hari Art Prize (2024), judged by senior figures from White Cube and Collective Ending HQ. Previous accolades include being runner-up in the Tiepolo Blue Art Prize (2022), judged by art critic James Cahill and Maggi Hambling CBE.

Her work has also been acquired for Pan Macmillan’s London headquarters and selected for the Terrence Higgins Trust Auction at Christie’s, London, UK. Recent exhibitions include Woven Voices at 3812 Gallery, London. Her work will also be shown at Van Gogh Village Museum, Nuenen, Netherlands, in autumn 2026.