Jay Cheng is a Hong Kong-born artist and practitioner currently living in Chiang Mai, Thailand, whose creative journey has evolved through different forms of making, identity and care. Currently in transition from her longstanding practice as a hat-maker towards healing and mediumship, Cheng is exploring this transformation through her healing art. Her first exhibition “A Moving Ceremony: The Art of Becoming” is taking place at Studio 88 in September – October 2026.
Jay Cheng began her professional practice in millinery, developing a recognised career as a hat-maker after discovering the craft almost unexpectedly in 2004. At a time when she was going through “some strange times” in her personal life, career and relationships, Cheng travelled to England and enrolled in a short millinery course simply “to kill time.” Instead, she discovered a new interest that gave her focus and, as she describes it, “healed somehow.” Millinery found her—and it never stopped.
Over the years, Cheng developed an extensive practice as a milliner, working between Hong Kong and Canada and presenting her work internationally. She represented Hong Kong in an exhibition in Brussels, participated in London Craft Week, created work for fashion and special events, and collaborated with designers and photographers, including a presentation at New York Fashion Week. Her practice has always combined technical skill with curiosity and an intuitive approach to materials. She describes herself as approachable, curious and hardworking, constantly asking how things work, how they are made, and what might be possible. This curiosity places her naturally in “a maker’s mode”—always looking, experimenting and finding new ways to transform an idea into form.
Her approach to millinery is both physical and imaginative. Working with three-dimensional forms, she developed what she calls an “architectural eye,” paying close attention to shape, proportion, light, colour and the shadows cast by a hat on the body. At the same time, inspiration often comes from somewhere less tangible: a film, a song, a material, a feeling, or simply an inner urge to create. “It’s coming from the inside,” she explains. A hat might begin with a particular “vibe” already present within her, waiting to be transformed into an object.
Material transformation has also been closely connected to Cheng’s understanding of sustainability. As a practitioner within the slow maker movement, she has advocated for handmade objects that are made with care and intended to last. Rather than continually purchasing new materials, she looks first to what she already has, as well as vintage materials, dead stock and tools passed on by other milliners. Her understanding of sustainability is therefore not only about materials, but about longevity, resourcefulness, craftsmanship and the possibility that an object can carry a life of its own—perhaps even being passed from one generation to another.
Yet Cheng’s journey has never been solely about making hats. Looking back, she recognises that transformation has been the constant thread running through her different lives. She describes each creation as a kind of love story: she puts “100” into each piece, falls in love with what she is creating, and for that moment it becomes her favourite. Then the relationship ends, she moves on, and another creation becomes the new favourite. The same movement of attachment, release and renewal now extends into a new chapter of her practice.
Today, Cheng is moving from hat-making towards healing and mediumship, bringing her sensitivity to transformation into a practice of caring for others. Her work continues to be concerned with helping people reconnect with themselves, but the material has shifted—from fabric, form and the body towards subtle energy, emotional presence and spiritual connection. Rather than seeing this transition as a departure from her artistic practice, it can be understood as another evolution of the same impulse: to listen, to witness, to refine, and to support transformation.
For Cheng, identity is never fixed. It is a process of becoming—of arriving at one version of oneself, living within it, and eventually feeling the quiet pull to search again. Her journey from Hong Kong to Canada and now to Chiang Mai reflects this continual movement across places, professions and ways of being. What remains constant is her relationship with transformation.
At Studio 88, Cheng’s residency marks a moment within this ongoing evolution. It offers a space to consider what happens when a maker who has spent decades shaping objects begins instead to work with the unseen, the felt and the deeply personal. Her practice sits between craft and care, beauty and essence, the visible and the invisible—inviting us to consider healing not as something imposed upon another, but as a process of creating the conditions in which change can be witnessed, supported and allowed.
Artist Statement
My work begins with a question I have lived with for most of my life:
Who am I, when identity keeps changing?
I move through cycles of becoming.
Each time, I arrive at a version of myself with certainty—believing I have found my place, my purpose, something I can finally call my own. And yet, as time unfolds, something shifts. A quiet pull returns. After years—sometimes a decade or more—I feel the need to search again, to shed, to evolve into another form.
This is not loss. This is my rhythm.
I no longer see this constant searching as instability, but as a moving ceremony—an ongoing process of letting go and becoming. Identity, for me, is not fixed. It is something that expands, dissolves, and re-forms many times within a single lifetime.
Across all these forms, something remains unchanged.
I work with transformation.
Through beauty, styling, and subtle energy, I help people reconnect with themselves. I am drawn to elevating others—supporting them in seeing their own potential, their own essence. Whether through the physical, emotional, or spiritual, my work holds space for becoming.
I do not claim to “fix” or “complete.”
I witness, refine, and support.
My practice lives in the space between the visible and the felt—where appearance meets essence, where healing is not forced, but allowed, where each person is met in their own timing.
At its core, my work is about evolution—of self, of identity, of soul.
And I continue to evolve alongside it.
Jay Cheng made her debut at Studio 88 as a healer, together with her life partner, Franklin Lau, photographer, visual artist and percussionist. For their first session, they worked with a group of artists and Studio 88 guests, with Jay offering Reiki sessions while Franklin leads Gong Sound Healing. Together, they bring an artistic and creative approach to family life, raising their children through art, creativity, and mindful living. Their collaboration reflects a shared belief in the power of creative practice, sound, energy, and human connection to nurture well-being.
Jay Cheng’s first exhibition “A Moving Ceremony: The Art of Becoming” is taking place at Studio 88 in September – October 2026.
More about Jay Cheng on her instagram.
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