A Conversation With...
Chloe Lau (@klojehy)
What does it mean to grieve someone who hasn't died? In this intimate interview, Chloe reflects on anxiety, attachment, lost connections, and the quiet "what ifs" that followed her along the way. She shares how she's been able to live alongside grief and create a new meaning for herself with what remains, using visual art as a tool for healing.
Talent: Chloe Lau
Interview & Photography: Kai Oszlai
KO: When you think about “mental health right now” in your life, what feels the most present or hard to put into words?
CL: Right now? I find that I often get this uncomfortable, almost painfully tight feeling in my chest when something goes wrong, or when I start thinking a little too much. This tightness probably relates to my innate impulse to constantly worry about the future, an impulse I wish I knew the origin of. Because honestly? I’d say I struggle to live in the present, I’m always stuck on making sure I plan every next step of my life accordingly. Once something doesn’t go as planned, that feeling comes back. And it might be hard to imagine that this psychological chest pain can affect your daily life, but it really does make me unable to focus at times. It sucks, so I try everything possible to make it go away. Although,I find that acting on impulse to get rid of this..painful feeling sometimes makes it even worse. I mean, generally, never act on impulse. I had to learn that the hard way, I always just did and said whatever I needed to try and lift that pressure off my chest. And it took me a lot of time to realize how that affected other people.
KO: People often talk about grief as something tied to death, but you’ve mentioned grieving someone who’s still alive. What does that kind of grief feel like for you?
CL: I learned over time that grief is non linear..If anything, it takes the shape of this discombobulated mess of meandering lines. I've experienced the grief of death, and yet..it felt completely different than having to grieve someone who was “still living.” I honestly feel nothing but sadness and regret when grieving the death of a loved one, never anger. Yet when a person you held special suddenly just disappears from your life, they become “dead” in presence but they’re still there. You see them online, in your phone as a contact, in objects and places that relate back to them. HEAVY on the objects and places. It takes so much willpower to fully “delete” them from your life, because you’re not grieving the loss of a person, you’re grieving what “could have been.” They’re still alive, yet everything you once planned together, suddenly doesn’t exist anymore.. Since they’re still existing, breathing, you wanna get revenge, you wanna maybe reconcile? I’m not sure.
Childlike Wonder, 2025
Paint on canvas
Chloe Lau
This painting represents the locking up of your inner child, having to grow up early, and dealing with emotional tribulations at an early age. It's a direct representation of my personal habit of letting my inner child out with those I feel safe around. My hiding of my inner child led to my current day expressiveness. Usually identified by my easy crying, emotions obviously showing on my face, etc. This is why a lot of people have called me “immature.”
KO: Do you think losing contact with someone can sometimes feel more confusing than a clear ending? Why or why not?
CL: I do, suddenly losing contact with someone can leave you disoriented. Especially when the end became pure radio silence. I recently found out I went through a blindside? That’s what it’s called, I think. There was a plan to talk about how we could mend things, maybe come to a compromise. At least that’s what I thought, but that wasn’t how it went at all. They chose to leave, no discussions, nothing. I was caught completely off guard because that decision was made without me, I just had to accept it. It left me with more questions than answers. I wanted closure, I wanted to know what I did wrong. Instead I’d hear from other people how they were doing compared to me, they’d say that I seemed to take it harder than most people. Then I’d hear about the things they’d say about me, and I became restless, confused, angry, sad. My heart broke, because I started questioning my own truth, worth, and my own memory. I didn't know what to believe anymore. I wanted to talk, SO badly, to clear things up, but I eventually realized that speaking to someone who deliberately left me confused wouldn’t make things any more clear. I genuinely had to learn that sometimes, your final closure is to stop asking “what ifs” that could’ve changed the outcome or asking “why” things turned out like this.
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KO: Is there a moment, memory, or realisation that you feel changed how you understand relationships or attachment?
CL: There is, months ago I’d ask you what defines a healthy relationship? Because obviously I had no idea, until I went into this google research rabbit hole. I was so restless, so anxious, during the month of June that all I could do was try to rationalize my feelings through psychology research. I spent hours on Google Gemini asking things like“what was the psychology behind this?” “Why did they do this?” “Why did I feel like this?” “What compelled me to do that?” “Was I toxic? Were they toxic? What defines toxic?” I learned that I developed what they call an “anxious attachment style” because I was being starved emotionally. Obviously, I wasn’t in the healthiest social environment, as much as I liked to lie to myself. When I got emotional (I am a cry baby), I got labelled as intense, immature, reactive, and hard to handle. And so I started overexplaining everything to get people to treat me the way I wanted to be treated. I was genuinely trying to prove my needs to people who just didn’t understand me. While that’s not their fault, I’ve kinda come to a conclusion that I’d rather find people who actually have the emotional capacity to meet me in the middle rather than shrinking myself to fit into a circle where I never felt understood.
KO: When things feel heavy emotionally, what’s something small (a habit, place, or person) that helps you stay grounded?
CL: If I told you that I immediately started taking care of myself emotionally I’d be a big fat liar. Because the moment I had to grieve someone, I spent an entire day screaming and crying in bed. It’s a great way to release the pent up mix of emotions you feel in the moment, but I had to stop at some point. Crying is great, don't get me wrong, but when it begins to prevent you from functioning as a person, that's when you realize that something’s gotta change. I still cry whenever I wanna, just less intensely. Other than that, I always end up journaling. I know how cliche that sounds, but I used to just pour out all my thoughts into a burn letter or an actual decorated journaling page. It gets them out and doesn’t affect anyone else. Or I reach out to someone unrelated, someone I trust, and talk, just talk, and talk, and talk. I get to pour all my thoughts out with minimal judgement. It keeps me present, to say the least.
Ethereal Warmth, 2025
Kirigami
Chloe Lau
A representation of personal grief. For me it was about the loss of my grandfather, and still feeling the presence of someone you’ve lost. This fits into my answers about still feeling someone's presence even after their role in your story is over. This feeling, as I’ve learned recently, also applies to the presence of “living people” that you’re grieving.
KO: If your emotional state right now had a visual form, like a colour, texture, landscape... what would it look like?
CL: Maybe, the sky? A cloudy bright blue sky. Sometimes, I feel as though I’m slowly floating through life, I think about how freeing it would be to be able to fly. How far you can get away from a turbulent life. Bright blue is a colour that makes me happy, I’m not sure why but a bright blue sky and sunlight makes me happy. Yet it’s also a colour that naturally represents melancholy. The sky is so vast, and it calms me to know that my problems become tiny in comparison to how big the world is. Emotionally I feel drained, I feel small after shrinking myself, but I still feel free knowing I don’t have to stay in this box forever.
KO: How does making or thinking about visual art affect your mental state, if at all? Does it feel like escape, expression, control, something else?
CL: Rather than escape or a distraction, visual arts act as a way for me to reclaim my own narrative. No matter what anyone else tells me, a physical piece always reminds me that my truth is mine. Whatever I believed, was mine to believe, mine to feel, and mine to narrate. I’ve mentioned recently feeling like I couldn’t believe my own memory, that I no longer trusted my own intuition because of what I’ve been told or what I’ve heard. Self-worth is a fragile thing, and when you shrink yourself to fit someone else’s story, it dwindles. It’s not me trying to control a narrative, I think it's genuinely just how I try to stay true to myself. Art has always been my way of telling other people who I am, and that I won’t change my ideas or ideals to fit a narrative that isn’t mine.
"Wake Up", 2025
Graphite
Chloe Lau
Untitled, 2025
Graphite
Chloe Lau
KO: Are there emotions you find easier to express visually than verbally? Why do you think that is?
CL: Anger, and maybe a certain calmness that can’t be depicted verbally. I’ve never been one to yell, squeal in joy and happiness, yes. But when I’m angry I become silent, my vocal chords involuntarily shut down, but it shows on my face. All my emotions show on my face, I am very easy to read if you pay close enough attention. My mom’s always commenting on my face, because I just have the worst poker face. So instead, sometimes I depict it on canvas rather than speaking. I love throwing paint around, let’s call it abstract art. Painting is a really really good way for me to depict anger or calmness. When I’m sad I just cry, when I’m angry I scribble a bunch of random lines on a piece of paper or throw paint onto a canvas. Most of my actual pieces though, depict serenity, melancholy, or just something calm. I think it’s my way of reeling in my intense emotions, because sometimes I genuinely just want to feel at peace with myself.
KO: Do you ever find yourself returning to certain images, aesthetics, themes, or media when you’re going through something emotionally intense?
CL: I do, whenever I go through something I find myself returning to the same pieces of media. Childhood shows, whether it’s anime or cartoons, it doesn’t matter. It gives me the boost I need to keep functioning. This time around I went back to watching a childhood show I loved called Winx Club. I’ve always loved fairies and mermaids as a kid, and reliving those childhood dreams always calms me down. Maybe it’s the fantastical and magical aesthetic that calms me down. Or it’s an anime like Fairy Tail that showcases loyalty and genuine unconditional friendship. I watch it because it depicts something I don’t really have, and yet watching it comforts me. It’s simple, and brings me back to a time where I had no worries. This honestly might be why I love art so much, I’ve always wanted to work in media creation. Maybe not animation, but I want to bring the same feeling I had while watching shows to other people.
KO: What’s something you wish people understood better about “moving on” from someone you used to care about deeply?
CL: At some point, people constantly told me I had to “get over it,” “move on,” that “time will heal.” Someone even told me to find a distraction once, and honestly? Everytime I heard it I got so angry, because I felt like I was wrong for taking more than a week to get over someone I planned to keep in my life forever. What most people don’t realize is that you constantly go through this cycle of anger, confusion, sadness, regret, disgust, any emotion you can name you’ll feel at some point in your “grieving process”. Until finally, life gets so busy, so big, that eventually you stop crying every day, you smile again, remember something, reminisce a bit, then go back to living your life. It's not that over time the months and years just magically “erased” the trauma. You just outgrew it? It's still a part of you, and that’s why you can't just “move on” in the span of one week. It's humanly impossible. For me, losing someone you thought you knew is like getting shot, you don't heal from a bullet wound in one week, and even then it leaves scarring or permanent damage. You can’t really distract yourself from this massive gaping hole in your body. And if you think about it, dealing with an old bullet wound 2 years down the line does more harm than healing.
KO: If you could create a single piece of art that represented where you are emotionally right now, what would it be, and would you want anyone else to see it?
CL: A painting. I don’t get many chances to paint, but when I do I love taking full advantage of the opportunity. Sketching or drawing digitally don’t have the same physical effect as painting. For me it’s a bit too controlled, a bit too detail oriented. I love to express my emotions in a messy way, because honestly? Emotions are a mess. Something abstract but structural. I’d paint a desk, letters flying everywhere, unsent, unfinished, unwritten alike. I want a visual representation of all the words I’ve been unable to say, all the grievances that I’ve had to keep bottled up. I can’t yell at the world, but I can yell into a painting and hope it reaches my target on a..spiritual level? I guess. Art therapy? I think it’s called. I don’t think it really matters who sees it, as long as I remember that no matter what I hear, I created it for myself. Not for someone else.
(End of interview. Photographs taken at the David Dunlap Observatory on August 3rd, 2026)
