William Lim’s Love Letter to Hangzhou

Description

In Time After Time, William Lim explores a poetic meditation on change and continuity. Painted outdoors at Hangzhou’s West Lake from 2024 to 2025, his 23 canvases trace the lake’s evolving moods — from dawn’s gentle blushes to night’s glimmering rains — capturing the pulse of light, air and season in vivid harmony. Through repetition, Lim reflects on permanence within transience and celebrates nature’s cyclical flow.

Highlights include “Octagonal Garden” and “Octagonal Pavilion of Building No.1,” referencing the historic building visited by Nixon and Kissinger in 1972, linking personal vision to cultural memory. A longtime devotee of gardens and flowers inspired by pilgrimages to sites like Monet’s Giverny, Lim explores the “Flowing Spirit” where art channels the atmosphere of a place, a concept that resonates across artistic hemispheres. The Chinese garden is significant for the artist; rejecting rigidity and convention, the free-form garden symbolises a yearning for creativity and imagination.

A celebrated architect and artist, Lim’s practice bridges sensibility and structure; his plein-air works reveal how history, place and emotion intertwine — each brushstroke a quiet testament to experience unfolding in time. His architectural works have been showcased internationally, including at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2006 and 2010, while his paintings have appeared at Art Central Hong Kong (2022) and Art Basel Hong Kong (2023).