Public demonstration during his 2017 solo exhibition at the Visual Arts Centre, Singapore.
Image courtesy of Vincent Lin
73-year-old Lim Choon Jin has been an artist all his life. Having exposed to art lessons in school as a child, the passion and interest blossomed over time. His passion was however shelved as people in the older days placed more emphasis on a more pragmatic living – the notion of not being able to feed yourself with art was pretty strong back then.
While he initially served the Ministry of Education (MOE) as a secondary school math teacher, he later converted to teach secondary school art after taking his Diploma in Fine Arts at LaSalle, subsequently followed by his Bachelor Degree and Master Degree. Mr Lim then was able to focus on his full-time career as a painter after his retirement from MOE in 1998.
Having grown up in a Chinese family, he was very much inculcated with the Chinese culture. But things changed after he went to LaSalle where his artistic perspective was broadened after he was exposed to Western art education, enabling him to venture out of his comfort zone to try out something different, albeit not initially accepted by the Chinese ink painting community.
Instructing students in Luoding, Guangdong, China.
Image courtesy of Vincent Lin
When asked about the origin of his inspirations, he talked about his travels around the world which he termed them as “field trips”. These field trips to him are not solely a ‘see and go’ exercise – he will take time to bask in the surroundings, absorbing everything that the place has to offer. This helps in his future artworks, for example if he hopes to paint a waterfall, he would jog through his memory for the past waterfalls he had seen and felt before he lifts up his brush.
Apparently, Mr Lim does not do any pre-tracings on the paper before he starts painting. The final product of his painting is already in his head before he even starts on it. When asked if he is worried that the painting might go wrong without a sketch, he merely laughed it off and said it is all about his years of experience in Chinese ink painting.
What many people failed to see is the hard work every artist has put in and the time they have invested over the years, to accumulate the experience that brings them to where they are now. Unlike oil or acrylic mediums where they could be repeatedly used to rework and alter, making corrections in a Chinese ink painting is a challenge as the ink and colours used in Chinese ink dyes into the paper. In a nutshell, Chinese ink artists can ill afford to make any mistakes as a single wrong brushwork can marr the entire painting.
Rolling Mist in Highlands
雾卷山峦
Lim Choon Jin
2015
Chinese ink on rice paper
45 x 180 cm
Collection of the artist
Flight of Fancy
紫气满山
Lim Choon Jin
2013
Chinese ink and colour pigment on rice paper
89 x 89 cm
Private Collection
While Mr Lim’s schedule is committed to teaching in Fei Yue Family Services’ Silver Generation arts programmes as well as his public short courses at LaSalle, he hopes to be able to allocate time to conduct Chinese ink painting demonstrations for our community.
Kampung Sembawang 