Artist Statement

My work is an evolving process comprising different phases and repetition. I attempt to build a body of work that is concerned with the theme of uncertainty. I explore through experimentation, and more importantly, through risk taking. I am interested in the materiality of clay, a medium that offers intimacy. All works are derived from exploring an idea, that can be revived from time to time. I imbue it with new meanings, through different ways of expression.

Title of artworks

1. Just Dharma, Porcelaiin and Lighting accessories, Palazzo Franchetti Cavalli, Venice, Italy. 2. Light Weight, Mixed Media, Palazzo Franchetti Cavalli, Venice, Italy.3. Just Another Dharma, Porcelain and Lighting accessories, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.4. Lotus Leaf, Stoneware, Oriental Hotel, Singapore.5. Walking Sticks, Stoneware, World Ceramics and Exposition Foundation, Korea.

Short description of artworks

Metaphors of hybridity and migrations have been subject matters that constantly surface in the works of artist, Jason Lim. He is a trained ceramicist and also a noted performance artist. Lim is a Muslim convert, raised in a Buddhist household and educated in a Catholic mission school. Not surprisingly, he has a sustained personal and work interest in hybridity – that infamous condition of post-modernity with its suggestions of ‘cross-breeding, impurity and intermingling’.

Just Dharma, was presented in the 52nd, Venice Biennale in 2007. At the official opening during the Singapore Pavilion, Just Dharma was allowed to crash to the floor, where it remained for the duration of the Exposition. The work, Just Dharma, suggests that destruction is as important as formation in the making of artwork.

Light Weight, 2007, adopts the shape of the ‘shadow of the chandelier’ - its shadow-form fashioned from junk and detritus collected over a decade. As with many writers including Walter Benjamin who probe how life histories attach to objects, the artist’s proposition lies in how dreams are lived out in these objects and how over time these junk objects out-live their owner’s dreams.

Just Another Dharma, 2007, is a chandelier of glowing porcelain Lotus flowers, an emblem of Asian Buddhist cultures. The accumulation of lotuses suggest an ‘architectural cluster of prayers’, recalling Thai Loy Krathong rituals where lighted lotuses are floated as prayers in the river. Just Another Dharma is commissioned work by the Singapore Art Museum and is currently on exhibit until the Month of November 2008.

Lotus Leaf, 2006, the design of the work is loosely base on the shape of the lotus leaf. The surface of the work have makings and patterns that are reminiscent of ethnic Southeast Asian textiles and traditional pottery wares.

Walking Sticks, 2003, the distinguishing characteristic of this series of work is its apparently matter-of fact use of ceramic materials and methods to dispel rather than reinforce the sense of ceramics as a discipline.