Leon Lim

Born in Malaysia, Leon Lim has not had the ability to hear any kind of sound or music since birth. Lim’s deafness developed his ability to have a strong visual sense. Initially, Lim discovered art through colorful prints of music cassettes. His passion for colors, compositions, shapes and images brought Lim to the art world at the early age of five.
 
At present, Lim is a New York based contemporary artist with his rich “East-meets-West” background, who works in several mediums such as film, sculpture, abstract-structure, painting, interior architecture, graphic design, photography public art and multimedia installations. His compositions explore themes of heritage preservation and social segregation, the communication barriers, the intertwining of all realms of
life and death, and the politics of identity and culture. Lim collects everyday objects to create new works that increase opportunities for viewers to think, analyze and explore.
 
His works merge realism with the beauty of abstract form, resulting in art that is both ancient and contemporary. Lim narrates his cultural experiences and perspectives of the real events into his art works, in which contemporary trivial culture is united with obsessive culture and practices that are traditionally and physically taken from all continuing cultures to create a cosmos that produce new mythology and interpretative perception.
 
In 2008, Lim’s public art installations including Discommunicativeness and Silent Story were exhibited in The World Financial Center, New York City, The John F. Kennedy Center, Washington DC and Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea. His work, The 3(656) is a permanent public art installation displayed at Student Development Center, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York. He is recipient of TMCA Grant for Interactive Installation and winner of Communication Service for the Deaf Award. Lim is one of the 14 New York based artists featured on the Mayor of New York City’s 2009 calendar.

Currently Lim is working on art work proposals and development for five shows in 2009 -2010: Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia; Red Square, Moscow, Russia; Mori Museum, Tokyo, Japan; USM Museum & Gallery, Penang, Malaysia; and National Art Gallery Museum, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His artwork makes one of few new waves of contemporary art to reach young generations in the developing countries of South East Asia.
 
His two new installations for Tamarind Art Gallery include “Door is Life’s Answer” and “The Unaware Mirror”, representing materialism between parents and children, relatives and friends.
 
In installation “Door is Life’s Answer”, an umbrella holder representing a kid in controlled environment, stuck in the same place, newspaper representing the past, inform the present. A chair contains various elements relating to life of today and the life misled to us. Mat, umbrella, door handle show the past we can barely access.
 
In “The Unaware Mirror”, a mirror is placed on the center floor with a white sheet. A mirror is lying on the floor representing someone forgetting who he or she is. The installation shows us various examples that structure parent’s lives and identify who they are.
 
The elegiac elements of the installation allow viewers to increase interpretative questions about what people expect from a child; the disconnection that underlies the existence of our own culture.