Not gallery is pleased to present its fourth exhibition, Tree Spirit/ 森灵: Visions of the Arboreal by Lim Tze Peng, featuring a rare selection of lesser-known large-scale masterful ink works by Cultural Medallion winner Lim Tze Peng. Running from 11 to 19 March 2023 at The Arts House, the exhibition centres on Lim’s dynamic depictions of majestic banyan trees through 13 evocative ink works.
The acclaimed centenarian artist is best known for his street scenes of old-world Singapore and abstracted calligraphic masterpieces, called muddled calligraphy or hutuzi. This exhibition, however, veers off the beaten path to present a lesser-shown, though no less important, body of work created by the artist between 2006 and 2008. These works also demonstrate the artist’s experimentative and contemporary spirit with new painting and composition techniques. The exhibition is curated by independent writer and curator Michelle JN Lim. The works on display are on loan from private collectors, with nine of the 13 artworks being exhibited for the first time.
Lim Hong Wei, Founder of Not gallery says, “As one of our pioneer artists, Lim Tze Peng is a pivotal figure in Singapore’s art history. However, many of his innovative works have become prized collections of private collectors which makes them less accessible to wider audiences. As such, Not gallery is very excited to present this selection of rare artworks and I would like to thank the collectors for entrusting us with their works. As a next-generation, newly-established gallery, Not gallery is dedicated to building a platform where different communities can engage in dialogue about art, online and offline. We find it meaningful to bring these paintings from the walls of these private collectors and present them in a public exhibition. We hope that Tree Spirit/ 森灵: Visions of the Arboreal by Lim Tze Peng will allow members of the public to uncover new perspectives and gain a deeper understanding of one of Singapore’s most renowned local artists.”
“The works presented in Tree Spirit/ 森灵: Visions of the Arboreal by Lim Tze Peng are not only the artist’s ode to this force of nature for which he has immense regard,” added curator Michelle JN Lim. “They also reflect the experimental and contemporary spirit of the artist himself in his unrelenting drive for growth and breakthrough in his practice. Despite the firm traditions from which Lim came from and his mature age, the way that he allows for serendipity to breathe life into his practice in these various ways is uncharacteristically modern, distinguishing him as an artist with an experimental and contemporary spirit.”
Lim Tze Peng is a deep-rooted person, never doing things for the sake of doing it. Even the most abstract of works are rooted in something – from trees to roots. With this series, he experiments and tries new things to go from the traditional into the contemporary, a parallel from the majesty of the banyan tree to the artist spirit itself.
The selection of artworks for this exhibition originate from two ink series that Lim had created in homage to the enigmatic majesty of the banyan tree – Tree Spirit, namesake of the exhibition, and Gestures in Ink. The nine artworks from the Tree Spirit series will be making their exhibition debut this March.
Large in scale and unrestrained in brushwork, this selection of paintings marks how the artist embraces serendipity and new creative processes, to produce formidable gestural impressions of the arboreal. Lim’s sweeping, tangled brushstrokes and torrential drips and splatters result in intense mindscapes that reflect a primordial wilderness emanating with power. As the artist once mused, “You could say that my trees are visual poems of chaos.”
The paintings on display are also notable for how they reveal a crucial turning point in the artist’s practice in which he began to bridge Chinese painting traditions with artistic strategies often regarded as Western in outlook. It is in these works where he started to experiment with contemporary strategies such as cropping, collaborating with chance, and tilting the picture plane. Audiences will also get a peek into the artist’s creative process, as some of the pieces incorporate the overlapping back imprints of the original large-format paintings into the crop.
Tree Spirit/ 森灵: Visions of the Arboreal by Lim Tze Peng will be open to members of the public at The Arts House Gallery II from 11th to 19th March 2023, from 12pm – 7pm daily. Admission is free. More information available here
Not gallery also invites virtual visitors to enjoy the exhibition through an immersive and interactive online 3D space. The virtual exhibition presents three additional artworks from the Tree Spirit series, and is available for viewing from 11 to 31 March here
Bakchormeeboy 