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THE
ARTISTIC OEUVRE OF LIM TZE PENG
By Choy Weng Yang - 2003
Spanning
an overwhelming 60 years, Lim Tze Peng has been committed
to the pursuit of painting without any diversions. He has
been involved in three major enduring realms of art - Chinese
ink painting with its elusive techniques and an understanding
of Chinese traditions, Western landscape paintings which call
for sharp observation and a sensitivity to nature's sensations
and Chinese calligraphy art, whose requisites are scholarship
and agility of the mind.
A serious, relentless pursuer of his art, Tze Peng has to
date created over 2000 artworks in ink paintings, oils, calligraphy
art and ink sketches. The scope of his painting locations
and the spectrum of his themes are equally wide ranging: the
Singapore River, old Singapore haunts, charming meandering
canals of China's Suzhou, picturesque quaint villages of yesteryear
at Phuket, euphoric festivals and thronged market scene in
Bali, Paris's glamorous River Seine.
Tze Peng's
unwavering zeal for artistic pursuit continues to grow as
he still sees artistic potential temptingly awaiting his attention.
Through the years initially, Tze Peng has forged an unique
ink painting style born out of Eastern and Western concepts
and practices. Versed in Chinese history, scholarship and
the artistic legacy, Tze Peng was immediately lured by the
traditional Chinese ink painting, mesmerized by the fact that
brilliant exponents through history realised rivetingly inspiring
masterworks despite - or because of - the medium¡¯s
economy of artistic language and its meagre materials: just
ink on paper. As the urge to portray his own environment grew,
reflecting the times of his age, he was soon attracted to
the French Impressionists' flair for capturing the sensations
of light and atmospheric mood through the practice of painting
on the spot, responding instinctively to the stimulants of
the ambience. Thus his ink paintings simultaneously possess
the tested nuances of Chinese ink and the fleeting immediacy
of Impressionism.
From the
point of painterliness, the crux of Tze Peng's ink painting
which gives his work its strength is the combination of the
linear form and the tonal range. Giving the line priority
over the other painterly components ¨C colour, space,
mass texture, volume ¨C he succeeds in infusing the line
¨C through relentless practice ¨C with both energy
and lyrical power.
Meanwhile, his sharp awareness of the potential of tonality
in ink painting comes from his rekindling of a traditional
canon in Chinese ink painting which dictates that black Chinese
ink mixed with water in varying ratio can throw up an amazing
range of five distinct tonalities. The agile line and the
versatile tonality ensure an enviable free reign within his
repertoire of ink painting which calls fro mobility of expression
affecting tension and suggesting space, volume, light and
even colours.
Tze Peng's
Old Singapore series emerges as a distinct prominent phase
in his overall artistic oeuvre. In 1981 when Singapore¡¯s
urban redevelopment accelerated, Tze Peng, overwhelmed by
the apprehension that the Singapore River, Chinatown and the
old vicinities they radiate would either be transformed beyond
recognition or completed faded away ¨C promptly launched
his marathon ink painting blitz through painting for days
at a stretch. The locations he painted were more than just
cold statistics on a map as they were haunts that he grew
up in as a Singaporean, where he spent his Sundays with friends
and where he could deeply feel a sense of historical legacy.
Depicting the Singapore River, Chinatown, Boat Quay, Clarke
Quay, Teochew Market, his collection of Old Singapore paintings
came up to over hundreds.
Way beyond
dull graphic renditions, these paintings flowed from the artist¡¯s
vision where imagination, impulses and emotions were involved
and where the visual intangibles which escape many ¨C
such as the hectic pace of life and history, memory, culture,
customs, energy as reflected in the ambience and the architecture
¨C were collectively encapsulated in every singular painting.
Yet even as visual documentation, the cast collection of these
paintings if reassembled before us will amount to an awe-inspiring
visual tapestry which will reconstruct a Singapore of the
1960s to 1980s.
Tze Peng's vast ink painting series on Bali is yet another
of his towering visual artistic adventures. For him, the Balinese
artistic immersion amounts to no less than yet another sustained
involvement in the discovery of the differing facets and layers
of human experiences. Tze Peng¡¯s Bali is not the
exotic Bali that one encounters in travel brochures or in
popular imagination. His is a Bali deep in the Balinese homeland
where the contact with a moving spiritual community life,
the people¡¯s religious devotion and their unspoilt
values is a sobering even beautiful experience. He painted
market scenes, grocer stalls, fishing villages, temples, community
gatherings, festivals, dancers, processions and ¨C his
favourite ¨C entangled trees.
In one
of his most vibrant and vivid ink works, Tze Peng with characteristic
calligraphic fleeting touches created a composition of a Balinese
festival, captivating its enthralling atmospheric mood.
The drama
involved in the evolution of Tze Peng's Chinese calligraphy
art is intriguing. Moving from phase to phase in the hierarchy
of the traditional Chinese calligraphy from the conventional
scripts to the more abstract running script ¨C accompanied
by the theories on calligraphy, Tze Peng went through a tormented
period ¨C lasting a few years ¨C to unlock the dynamics
of truly stunning calligraphy. An important part of this process
was to study assiduously the great masterworks which lined
the history of Chinese calligraphy from Han to Tang dynasties,
from the Ming dynasty to contemporary era.
The outcome:
an overhaul of his calligraphic practice in terms of the calligraphy
structures, proportions, balance and scale and the spatial
dynamics, with scarcely any guiding rules. The transformation
was stunning. Boldness and vigour, energy and variation characterize
Tze Peng's current calligraphy works. Invariably in large
formats with imposing scale, the calligraphy nevertheless
possesses unity and compactness which give the works an impact.
Plunging into his work with aggressive swiftness and decisive
ferocity, he injects in the calligraphy invigorating tension.
Lately, a new development begins to surface ¨C by varying
the weight and density of his calligraphic strokes and by
taking chances which randomly arise, his play of white spaces
is filled with titillating surprises.
Tze Peng's
oil painting which had it debut with his Chinese Junk Series
in 1960s emerges intermittently from time to time. Recently,
a number of fresh developments show that he is still capable
of surprises with unexpected facets of his artistic talent.
While
a charming series of spontaneous sketches ink Chinese ink
shows Tze Peng's ability to capture the visual sensations
of a fast paced city like Paris in the form of small alluring
works, it is in his two monumental works in oils ¨C Singapore
River 2000 and River Seine (France) 2000 ¨C and his substantial
recent Tree series which reveal a new level of artistic maturity,
consolidating early strengths, giving the works introspective
solidarity and intensity, working in layers towards an inner
depth. It is here that we see with obvious clarity how the
dynamic forces in Tze Peng's calligraphy art are driving his
paintings as well. The tree structures exude the power and
impact which are the result of decisive, direct executive
of the brushwork.
At 83,
Lim Tze Peng's artistic passion is undiminished.
@
Choy Weng Yang
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