Artist
Phong Chi Lai
Phong Chi Lai is a Naarm/Melbourne-based designer and maker working under the name Studio PCL. His practice specializes in contemporary quilts and soft sculptures through improv patchwork. Using upcycled/deadstock fabrics and natural dyes, Phong takes a considered and intuitive approach, responding to materials and his surroundings. He applies traditional techniques; hand-quilting, assemblage, and patchwork with an overtly free-hand approach to build compositional complexity.
Previously a shoe designer/maker, Phong took the opportunity to work in textile-based social enterprises in Asia, reinforcing his artisan ethos. Taking inspiration from these experiences, he developed his textile practice upon returning to Australia in 2018.
"‘I leave room for the chance encounter arising in the natural process – the signature of the *Unknown Craftsman*.
My influences range from the work of The Quilters of Gee’s Bend, Paul Klee, Louise Bourgeois and The Albers to folk and ethnic art and craft, in particular textile works where the hand and resourcefulness of the maker is evident." - Phong Chi Lai
AVAILABLE ARTWORKS
Shop by Collection
September Drop 2025
"This collection of patchwork paintings continues my exploration into the infinite configurations that fabric can be used to re-create. Using the interplay of line, natural colour, and organic shape, the patchworks suggest abstract terrain where likeness is never singular but open—shaped by the viewer’s shifting memories, associations, and imagination. Resemblance may hint at landscape, yet just as easily call to mind a poem, an emotion, a fragment of memory or fleeting dream. Likeness becomes a subjective, poetic resonance, unbound from literal depiction." - Shifting Worlds, Phong Chi Lai
Process - An Online Exhibition
"‘A flower is not only a flower. It is made only of non-flower elements – sunshine, clouds, minerals, gardeners, and so on. A true flower contains the whole universe.’ -Buddhist monk and poet Thích Nhất Hạnh
As a flower is more than just a flower, a patchwork painting is more than just itself. This collection is a study exploring the nature of materials as elaborative and constructive processes are applied to them. These works take basic shapes, colours and lines, manipulating them intuitively to suggest organic forms and textures. Reclaimed materials, hand-dyed using locally foraged and traditional natural dyes, animated through layered patchwork and detailed hand-work, suggest an infinite range of interpretations. " - Phong Chi Lai
Discover ‘Process’ the online exhibition.
The Open Call Winners Collection 2024
“Materials and forms can uncover underlying connections between different cultures and crafts, humanity and nature. The technique of patchwork has been used to piece and build compositional complexities, responding to the materials in a bold and improvisational aesthetic. These patchworks examine the bending of conventional quilt geometries, where half square triangles, log cabins and strip piecing take on a fluid and abstract quality.” - Phong Chi Lai
