Born and raised in Toronto, Bernice Lum spread her wing's ever so slightly and moved to Oakville to study graphic design at Sheridan College.
After graduating in 1984, she freelanced for several companies including CityTV/Much music's design department.
In 1988 she decided to spread her wings further and fly to London, England. While there, she freelanced for numerous design consultants and also began her illustration career.
Her illustration crossed over from corporate to packaging, editorial and children’s books. She has published approximately 50 children’s books and continues her commercial and personal works with clients in the UK, North America, Korea, and Japan.
Her two “not-so children’s books,” '12 Steps to Heaven' and 'More Steps to Heaven' sold over 150,000 thousand copies combined worldwide.
After a nine year stay in the UK, Bernice resides in Toronto and continues her illustration career, attempting murals, painting personal works, sculpture and recreating vintage bowling pins to her most favorite iconic characters.

Bernice Lum is a visual artist based, born and raised in Toronto.
Her body of work are iconic characters that she has grown up with that deal with mass media, mass culture, celebrity, bowling, ice cream, and everything sugar and nice.
The iconic characters “pin” point the memorable moments in time that no doubt influenced and inspired her.
Bernice was born in 1963 when television, fast food, TV dinners, the Beatles, and Saturday morning cartoons were front row and center. It was also a time when artists began combining pop culture with forms of imagery from advertising, movies and even comics into the realm of high art. Bowling was also a huge part of popular culture in the 20th century and in her family life and continues in its popularity with a new resurgence.
The pins are an ideal canvas for Bernice’s work as they immediately evoke a tone of nostalgia, familiarity, kitsch, sentimentality, and at the same time, a sense of humor, wit and mischievousness.
With the impact and power of iconic images being such a strong influence and inspiration in her life, Bernice has chosen characters from Bruce Lee to Bambi in her tongue in cheek style.