- by Kika Espejo
REALITY IS COMPLEX AND MULTILAYERED
"These visual effects came from my passion for video editing and are a natural evolution of the craft. These techniques allowed me to create worlds I couldn’t in real life. Returning to my days of solitude as a child, visual effects give me the opportunity to create new virtual worlds and control every aspect of them,” says Vicky Lau, LA based Singapore native, about her art and its evolution.
The artist, who discovered her vocation during her adolescence after living a difficult childhood, uses her personal struggles as a platform to unleash her imagination. "Being excluded and harassed by my classmates, I lived isolated most of the time. But at the age of fourteen, my father gave me a video camera, and I finally had an outlet for self-expression. The moment I edited my first video in Windows Movie Maker was when I became an artist."
But it was in Los Angeles, not Singapore her native country, where Vicki developed her career and began to found herself as an artist. Vicki began as a visual effects artist in the world of cinema working in major Hollywood productions such as Guardians of the Galaxy, Independence Day: Resurgence and War for the Planet of the Apes. She also worked in famous television series such as The Walking Dead and Gray's Anatomy. This medium allowed her to express and satisfy her need to give life to internal ideas and imaginations, an essential aspect of her identity and self-expression.
Vicki tells us that, in her creative process, she does not look outside in search of inspiration, but lets her personal circumstances and her inner self guide her, focusing all her attention on the act of creating. "If I could, I would throw my phone in the trash (which I cannot do because I still need to be connected to the world), so I could just focus on my work and what I'm creating, thinking of nothing or anyone else at that time. You could even leave me in a rural village with nothing but my creative work and I could do things the same way I do now. "
So far, one of her biggest challenges has been not to lose her own voice while works for large companies and studios. "It's ironic that many people enter the film industry to bring their own stories and ideas to life, but end up working to make others' stories come alive. That was a challenge for someone as fervent and individualistic as me. And I got over it by making sure I always had an outlet to express my own thoughts, ideas and narrations.”
Vicki loves what she does and feels that she improves every day, and is continuously finding herself on the road to complete self-realization. Despite creative difficulties, Vicki has managed to capture her own identity and language in all her work, leading her to be recognized as a great professional in her field. She has been invited as a speaker for large productions including TEDx and has participated as an expert in specialized virtual reality events, including Learning 2018, which included the participation of the former First Lady of the United States Laura Bush.
Through her work on visual effects and virtual reality, Vicki wants to open the eyes and minds of viewers, showing them that reality (like visual effects) is incredibly complex and multilayered. "I have many goals, but they all come down to creating work that not only makes me a better individual, but also spreads the message about the importance of self-empowerment as well as unlocking the latent potential held inside each one of us."
VICKI LAU
SINGAPORE
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