In comparison to the often-salient themes of contemporary art today, the retro image of the wooden portraits, the play-brick-like sculptures, and the drawings of classical buildings from Lim Soo Ngee’s recent solo show come across as almost anachronistic. But as we slowly absorb the humour, lightheartedness, and the charm of the artist’s carefree manner, we are able to enjoy them as a frank expression of the artist’s inner world. Or, to be less illusive, the exhibition is the manifestation of the artist’s modus vivendi – in perhaps an unintentional way.

The show’s most captivating works upon first glance is the group of loud, brightly tinted wooden portraits called “Perfect Lovers”. These are ethnically defined images of people, each accompanied by a caricaturized animal mostly resting on the portrait’s heads. The expression on their faces is minimal, forcing viewers to seek hints from the titles for an interpretation of the artist’s intention.

Facing the “perfect” family is “Paradise”, where, like a child taking liberty with his toy-bricks, the artist had assembled a group of variant forms into abstract compositions. The compositions are evocative of some ambiguous terrain probably due to the components that are suggestive of houses. Or, for viewers who have observed the compelling illustrations on the wall, the images of Renaissance buildings may have induced the presence of mysterious lands.

This exhibition is interestingly and exceptionally representational, if we consider Soo Ngee’s earlier endeavours in abstraction.

In the early years, the influence of Ms Han Sai Por was strong on Soo Ngee. Soo Ngee was already well-trained in Western painting before he enrolled as a full time student at NAFA in the 80s. To take on something more challenging, he opted to major in sculpture, and this began his venture into the 3-dimensional world. When Ms Han Sai Por became his tutor, he was shown the creative possibilities in extracting forms from nature to make art besides the conventional methods demonstrated by the foundation teachers.  As an inquisitive student, Soo Ngee was quickly fascinated by this new direction and, for a while, he was producing abstract forms and organic shapes in various materials. It was when he left Singapore for Edinburgh College of Art to do a 2-years masters degree course, that he began a journey he could call his own.

The decision to further study was a conscious act to search for new artistic expression. In order to find his own way, he had to rethink other possibilities and the capacities “sculpture” could provide. In the two years that he was put in a foreign environment, he also became more conscious of his own cultural roots. With these, Soo Ngee soon found himself adopting a brand new approach: as he let go of the previous formal inquisitions, the first thing that sip in was introspective reflections – an instinctual deed originated from his Chinese background – and soon Soo Ngee was creating work that is based on process and contemplation.

“108 Days – tête-à-tête with Tic-tac” was a turning point. This installation piece is probably the least “sculptural” work he had ever produced. But to Soo Ngee, he was “still doing sculpture” – indeed, he was carving marks using a pen on papers. “108 Days – tête-à-tête with Tic-tac” was his major project in Edinburgh. It is the result of him inscribing marks repetitively daily within a set time frame of nine-to-five in the same studio, where a wind-up clock ticked and accompanied him while he “meditated”:   

“’108 Days – tête-à-tête with Tic-tac’ is an image of the form of my personal journey, searching for an expression in art. The experience of painstakingly drawing lines for the 108 fragments was invaluable. When an occurrence or work is executed repetitively, time no longer exists as main issue. The subconscious and physique become relatively important issues. I enjoy this process most, the sublimation of the active mind and the serenity of the senses.”

In the 1920s, Kasmir Malevich of Russia sought to eliminate his ego by performing what he called “the humblest act of human sensibility” – he used pencil marks to blacken an area to be later called “suprematist square”. While Malevich’s attempt to impress human will upon nature and disorder may seem resolute to the point of arrogance, Soo Ngee’s gesture, on the other hand, was more reminiscent to the humble act of a Buddhist monk chanting with the help of a wooden clapper to prepare the mind for meditation: once the mind is calmed, the true self will reveal.

Not only is this an introspective activity, in his search to renew the meaning of sculpture for him, Soo Ngee is also attempting to introvert the less reciprocal process of how the artifact – usually a closed form – is subjected to being surrounded and observed in a nonreciprocal manner. In the “108 Days” installation, the viewers instead, became engulfed by and is subjected to the sensory experience the artist had put forward. This liberation transformed the agency from which his art is based – the artworks are no more a pursuit for an aesthetic end. Instead, when Soo Ngee picked up the carving tool once again, it was an instrument in which he could play with ease the casual notes and rhythms he had picked-up from his daily life experiences.

The various rather intriguing shapes from the “Apparatus Series” of 1999, for example, may mislead us as a continuation of his previous abstraction, however, they were a series of work developed out of his sentiments to make casings for the random junk-souvenirs he had collected from his travelings and outings. These instrumental objects, are actually containers that would house exclusively either a piece of stone picked from a walk on a foreign street, or a coolie-hook acquired from a local flea market. From unique casings that contain the artist’s memories and nostalgia, they gradually developed into ambiguous “apparatuses” that are reminiscent of the archeological items found in the history museums – although anonymous and unknown of its origin and function, they are fragments from which a lost culture or a lost memory is contained.

The recent exhibition is a further exposure of Soo Ngee’s found artistic attitude – which in turn, is his modus vivendi as mentioned earlier. The artist’s individual temperament and disposition became essential components that render the work meaningful. The “Perfect Lover” family, for example, gives away his mischievous personality. In his subtle metaphors, these neo-realist characters are representatives of social-beings in our communities. According to the artist, the animals and insects attached to the portraits are signifiers of their identity. If this is the case, Mr Prince White Horse is then obviously prince charming, Miss Hua denotes flower – butterfly – vanity, Madam Jiao could be a bird-brain women, Mr Meow, the “cat” man, is known as the thrifty one… These vivid characters sparked off from the fingertips of Soo Ngee, when he, with the leisure of a hobbyist, carved joyously on the wooden blocks he acquired randomly from various sources. They are spontaneous expressions that are fed by the artist’s aesthetic judgment, personal sentiments, and fragments from his daily memories. As he playfully calls them the “Perfect Lovers”, the cultural reference he endowed is blithely subjective rather than a critical sarcasm of a sociological nature.  

The “Paradise” series is even more private and with much child-like innocence. Comprises of groups of miniature forms and found objects, the bits and pieces of varied shapes make up a metaphorical play land, as if the artist had been a child again to construct a dream land out of his favourite play bricks and toys. The interesting thing with this group of work is how the bits and pieces seem like forms liberated from the Renaissance buildings depicted in the black and white drawings on the corresponding wall, as if the casual brushstrokes of a modern Chinese painting born from the traditional techniques a trained-master had released. At the same time as these drawings belie Soo Ngee’s artistic educational background, the forces for his final liberation however, originated from a tradition that emphasizes on transcendence.

Very often we find contemporary artists eagerly articulating cultural identity to the extent that it risks becoming parochial. Soo Ngee’s art exemplifies that even without forceful efforts, a piece of art is always a specific model from which we could discern the artist’s cultural belonging. While “culture” could be heavy, problematic, and burdening, Soo Ngee chose to enchant us with his manner of ease.