Lily joined Visual Arts Mississauga in January 2022, during her final year studying Art and Art History and Communications, Culture and Information Technology at UTM and Sheridan College. She was a talented artist who loved to draw with a strong background in design and marketing.

From the beginning, Lily was a natural fit with the VAMily as she completed her internship with an A+ assessment. This Spring, Lily became a valuable part-time employee helping to support our programs and administrative teams as she completed her degree and graduated from UTM. Her creativity can be seen in the naming of our new evening program Art Night Out as well as the fantastic logo design. Lily helped to share the success of this new program behind the scenes by sharing photos and stories those Friday evenings. Lily was an excellent addition to our team and we celebrated her blossoming creativity, dedication and initiative towards supporting visual arts and art education.

This summer, Lily found her place within our dynamic digital communications team and worked as a part-time Art Instructor and Social Media Coordinator. Lily had recently accepted a full-time position as Social Media Coordinator to begin this fall, working alongside Digital Media Coordinator, Pooja Raghunandan. Lily was full of ideas and had a great passion for engaging the community around her. Her eye for capturing the audience was highly valued as it took the forefront in her work.

Lily said it best “I am excited to be a part of VAM and to be able to create content to promote the diverse programs being held. I look forward to working on more projects to help make VAM more known via social media, and to support all the exciting activities we have planned.”

Our heartfelt condolences go out to the Chen family and all of Lily’s friends as we experience this time of grief together. Lily was a cheerful, friendly, and beautiful person who made an impact on everyone she connected with and she will be missed.