My Artist’s Statement
I have loved painting and drawing since the age of seven, drawing and painting came so natural to me in primary school art classes. I started with water colour paintings as a hobby since childhood, and began to specialize in oil painting in 1996 as I find that oil gives me a lot of room to explore and express myself. I enjoy building up the oil layer by layer, the treatment of painting can be varied from painting to painting; I would apply the traditional, illustration, glazing and innovative technique. I have experimented with various styles: realism, impressionism, post-impressionism, fauvism, semi-abstractionism, conceptualism, and minimalism. Lately, I am working on neo-classicism and naturalism on figurative painting.
Painting is a gateway for me to enter in my own world where I find solitary, happiness, enjoyment, and fulfilment, where soul and spirit get connected with the process of transforming the actual scenes and subjects on creative paintings. While I work with paintings of various sizes, I always feel that more freedom to express my feelings while on larger canvases. The meaning of painting to me has become stronger over the years, it was from hobby to passion, and painting is my life.
My earlier works show innocence in character and purity of taste towards fine art. The past decade’s pieces reflects not just creativity, but also a clean, honest of inner self, I also employed the painting subject as a metaphor on symbolic works. For instance, I invoked a sense of dance and song on the flower series that I created in 2001. For street scenes I strive to evoke human memory to tell the time and mood of the place. Also, I have developed a new style which uses the ‘flat painting technique’ to create the illusion of space on my Paris and Falmouth’s street scene series. My creative paintings are intentionally narrative to tell a story or show a concept to the viewers.
While Eugene Delecroix and Guido Reni’s figurative works have been the main influence in my figurative paintings which show romantic and neo-classical style. Delacroix’s philosophy of arts the motivating factor behind my desire to create great works. There are many other sources of inspiration for me, ranging from locations such as the Nature Park or the Botanic Gardens, or simply sitting in a café, to dreams that come in my sleep. Most of all, lonely street scenes at various places have continued to inspire the expression of the shapes and texture of the buildings, colours of the sky, and the idea of colour concept to show the moment of time and melancholy.
My goal is to strive to always create original and excellent artworks, and to be a forerunner on some painting styles. Also, hope to inspire many young artists.
Poh Lai LIM
Practicing Artist
Written on Dec 2007
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