Figure Study

Born in Singapore in 1955, Lim Tiong Ghee is a self-taught artist renowned for his abstract collages. He was Category Winner (Representational), UOB Painting of the Year Competition in 1984 with his ‘Reflection’ watercolour painting, and in 1989 Lim received the Competition’s Top Award for his wrapping paper collage ‘From the Turtledove’.Between the mid- to late-1980s, Lim was still primarily painting with watercolour and oils, but was becoming increasingly more experimental in his choice of medium, subject, and execution. In this mixed media study, Lim has not yet moved onto the still lifes which will next inspire him, however his progression towards abstraction has clearly begun – limbs and facial features are still recognisable in the repetitive shapes; areas of colour are used to define positive and negative spaces rather than to add tonality, becoming geometric shapes in their own right.