Kai Lum is a nonbinary/trans, second-generation Chinese American ceramic artist. Originally from Colorado, they moved to Georgia to study at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Shortly after, their mother suddenly passed away. In grief Kai returned to a childhood interest, ceramics, and found their voice in art. After earning a Bachelors of Fine Arts, they moved to North Carolina, where they completed an Artist Residency at Odyssey ClayWorks in Asheville.

Lum’s work is a self-proclaimed reflection of their personal and spiritual journey, deeply inspired by their ancestral religion of Taoism. Themes of juxtaposition create a through-line in their work, such as freedom and restraint, softness and hardness, the natural and the manufactured.

They currently live and work near the Great Smoky Mountains with their partner, dog, and cat.