he art of Lenore R.S. Lim is exceptionally noteworthy because of the integration of craft ó that is control of technique ó and aesthetic sensibility. It is a fusion that every artist strives for but which eludes most. This is because control of technique can be taught to many who have the manual dexterity, neither of which require any sensibility. And how often do we encounter the highly sensitive individual who lacks discipline and control of the manual craft? Even to the casual observer, this elusive mix of skill and feeling is readily felt in Lenore's printmaker's art.

The viewer will recognize a variety of techniques used by Lenore. This aspect of work is executed alternately with crispness or fluidity of printed form, as the artistic syntax demands, that the trained eye associates with superb mastery of the technical process. Lenore's sensitivity in the interpretation of forms in nature approaches a sensibility of religious awe. Indeed, Kierkegaard remarked, "...all great art is religious, although what would pass for both is neither." Her wonder of the beauty of it all is conveyed by her ability to denude mere technique of its impersonality and make it an instrument of her feeling.

In addition to this sense of cosmic awe when confronted with nature, the artist attempts to convey the local nuances of ambiance: shape, color, and animistic evocativeness unique to the wetlands, inlets, straits and bays, the mountains abruptly rising from variegated foliage and misty auroras found only in the interplay of sea, earth, sun and sky in the alchemy of thousands of island called the Philippines.

- George Nelson Preston, PhD.
Director of Graduate Art History,
Department of Art, The City College
of the City University of New York
 
 

The Prints of Lenore RS Lim

"Rarely does one in the art world have the opportunity to discover an artist who is as pure and as talented as Lenore RS Lim"

 - Agnes Gund, Chairman and President Emerita,

   The Museum of Modern Art

"Profound Afterglow: The Prints of Lenore RS Lim " reveals an artist whose prints take on an empirical tone as she distills and abstracts images found primarily in nature, whether they be leaves or the spider web-like qualities of handmade lace. Lim's works never belies her roots of the Philippines.   Her coloration is subdued and yet rich. Abstract, yet realistic. She deftly captures the finest of lines and nuances and translates them into new textures and tonalities.

Featuring a foreward by Agnes Gund, Chairman and President of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; an introduction by the director of her gallery in New York (Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art); a fascinating, in depth essay that puts Lim's work in context with the history and legacy of printmaking in the Philippines and abroad by Ruben DF Defeo, Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism, College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines Diliman; and an interview with the artist, Profound Afterglow is the first full assessment   and exploration of Lim's artistic output.

Profound Afterglow traces the course of the artist's life and her body of work. Themes include the experience of immigration, revelation, and illumination of the past and present.

Recepient of the 2004 Pamana ng Pilipino Presidential Award as well as a prestigious Jackson Pollock-Lee Krasner Foundation Grant among other honors, Lim continues to perfect her craft. Currently dividing her time between Vancouver and New York, she is an ardent supporter of younger Filipino artists at home and abroad. She is at the same time a tenured teacher at the United Nations International School in New York, as well as the mother of two, a wife, and a leader in her Christian Life Community


 

 news  |  portfolio  |  about the artist  |  contact