Vanha Lam is known for her works on paper which explore the delicate balance and tension between order and chaos, design and chance, immutability and impermanence. She embraces elements of deformation and indeterminacy as a means of creation.

Lam's influences stem from time spent in the coastal ruins of the Pacific Northwest and her early studies of brutalist architecture, concrete music, and the postcolonial, relational theories of Trinh T. Minh-Ha and Edouard Glissant.

Lam has exhibited extensively in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and London. Her works can be found in public and private collections internationally.