Lim Cheng Hoe wasn’t a very flashy painter during his life in Singapore — or a very well-known one, at that. But Lim’s contribution to art in Singapore, as well as his faithful and detailed renderings of everyday scenes from the beautiful to the mundane, has marked his place as a key watercolor painter in Singapore’s art scene. A special exhibition of his work will be on display at National Gallery Singapore.
Lim was born in China in the early 1900s, and moved to Singapore when he was still a young child. His first art teacher was so impressed with Lim’s talent and dedication that he urged the boy’s parents to send him abroad to complete his art education. However, Lim’s family couldn’t afford to send him to where he needed to go at the time to receive further guidance and instruction.
Instead, Lim obtained a sensible job and only painted watercolor artworks as a hobby, teaching himself the skills necessary to complete the art pieces he was most interested in. All of them featured the sights of Singapore, captured in vivid color and details prior to the invention of the color film camera. As a result, Lim’s watercolor masterpieces offer rare insights into the colorful past of Singapore as a country, especially since the artist tended to be interested in capturing ordinary people, places, and events.
As a result of Lim’s hobby and passion for watercolor, his painting collection includes memorable landscapes of kampong life and a distinctive painting style that belongs to Lim alone. One watercolor scene of structures on stilts and fishing vessels floating in water has a dreamy, almost surreal or impressionistic effect, the colors blurring into one another and evoking a sense of satisfaction or serenity. Lim also painted construction sites and land reclamation processes as Singapore continued to grow as a powerful young nation. This is valuable record of what might seem to be mundane scenes for paintings. Lim also seemed to make commentary on people’s relationships with their environments, rendering crowded settlements and commerce along peaceful river flows. In another watercolor painting, a river scene seems more industry than nature, boats and waders and bridges and buildings encroaching on the water.
In addition to documenting life and progress in Singapore, Lim was also instrumental in developing the creative community in the nation. He read plenty of educational material on art, associated with other artists, and built groups that helped develop and advance art in the country. By forming and meeting with such groups, artists who participated could receive valuable insights and feedback on the art they were completing, growing as artists in turn. Lim also formed an important watercolor-specific artists’ collective that exists today, carrying out the mission of promoting watercolor art in future artists and appreciation of the craft in fans of other types of art.
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To read more about Lim Cheng Hoe’s life and work, go to https://mothership.sg/2018/07/lim-cheng-hoe-national-gallery-exhibition/.