However, until the end of March, one would most likely find the 70-year-old artist overseeing his ongoing exhibition at Wei-Ling Gallery in Brickfields.
Titled “The Gaze of Sleepwalkers”, this is Lim’s second solo exhibition in Malaysia, his last held exactly a decade ago.
Of the 13 paintings and installations on display, the most prominent is the “Code” series of paintings, depicting charcoal-drawn animals with a background of schematics and numbers.
His detailed depiction of these beautiful beasts is breathtaking, but eyes tend to gravitate to the curiously-designed background.
What does it all mean? FMT Lifestyle spoke with the enigmatic artist in an attempt to decipher what his works represent.
“Usually, I only want to come back here for holidays,” he said, “because when you come here for an exhibition, your mindset is different from that of a holidaying one.”
He said hosting exhibitions meant he was on his best behaviour at all times, much like he used to be as a young boy in the presence of his father.
Lim said he has always had an obstinate streak, deliberately pursuing art specifically because his father opposed it.
That said, he does genuinely appreciate the art world which he calls “interesting”. “Art never takes away from you, it adds to you,” he said.
Asked about the title of his latest exhibition, Lim said it was about himself – a sleepwalker – albeit metaphorically.
“Sometimes, I am in this human world, where there are so many things happening. Many things which you can’t do anything about.”
Lim said he regarded himself as a passive sleepwalker, observing the things occurring around him, much like his drawings that suggest the coexisting of two separate worlds.
“In the animal world, they use a sixth sense to communicate across thousands of miles,” he said. “Mankind, on the other hand, has to depend on numbers that can change or end the world.”
One common feature in the “Code” series of paintings is a set of different sums that total up to “6174”.
Lim said that this reflected how humans live; though one may take a different route to work or home each day, one still ended up at the same point at the end of their travels.
His choice of animals was not random either, with both predators and prey represented on the canvas. Citing the example of lions and goats, Lim said the interactions between the two were part and parcel of nature.
Humans, said Lim, were something of an oddity, introducing imbalance to a perfectly-functioning ecosystem.
To hammer in his point, there are schematics for weapons of war in the background of some of the paintings. The power that humans hold over the planet, whether to aid it or to destroy it, cannot be discounted, in Lim’s eyes.
That said, people have much to learn from animals and there is more than enough time to do just that.
“We are nothing when compared to the world, not being even a second in the timeline of this universe. Why are we in such a hurry to end this world?”
‘The Gaze of the Sleepwalkers’ will be running until March 30.
For more information, visit Wei-Ling Gallery’s website, and Facebook and Instagram profiles.
Wei-Ling Gallery
8, Jalan Scott
Brickfields
Kuala Lumpur.
Opening hours: 10am-6pm (Tuesdays to Saturdays)