Courtesy of the Estate of Kim Lim, London.
Influenced by Buddhist and Daoist philosophy, Kim Lim expressed a vision of interconnection through minimalist sculptures and prints. Born in Singapore in 1936, Lim moved to the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s and became well-known within the country’s art circles. She was the only non-white female artist to be included in the first Hayward Annual, in 1977, an influential exhibition in London that featured some of the most prominent British artists of the time. Though Lim was widely recognized and insitutionally collected in Britain during her lifetime, these works were rarely shown–due in part to widespread sexism at the time. As such, her practice remained relatively hidden from domestic and wider international audiences until recently. In the last few years, Lim has been the subject of several survey exhibitions that have reintroduced her practice to contemporary audiences.
Lim believed in the existence of an energy flow that permeates and connects all things through vibrational frequency. The Taipei Biennial 2023 includes selected prints that reflect Lim’s study of the universe. Most of the prints were created in the 1970s, a period of intense experimentation with form, space, rhythm, and light. One can find recurring motifs, such as the curve of a plant or the effect of a southerly wind, demonstrating Lim’s observation of nature and natural forces.
