Eternity in Fragments: Lou Lim

Nouns: Verbs

Process (also, steps, sequence): painting (also, printmaking, “print painting”, sculpture). Casting the painting forms a mold or matrix. Applying oil paint onto it, laying linen (also, ground) over it, then applying pressure across its surface creates a print (also, intaglio, imprint, extract, trace, mirror).

At West Gallery in 2018, Lou Lim presented her solo exhibition ‘A Tangible Translation’ (also, transition, transformation, incarnation). The first work (also, piece) was a painting based on a photograph (also, reference, image) of a blue sky with cirrocumulus clouds.

Here in ‘Eternity in Fragments’, the first work enlarges (also, scales) over a hundred thousand times a photograph of a 6-by-3-centimeter section (also, fragment, piece) of skin taken on the same day at the same spot. It is somehow somewhat blue.

The textures in these two first paintings reference (also, mirror) each other — sky (also, God, heaven) and skin (also, body, matter) — and reaches across the time between these two shows, and, according to Lim, between man (also, present) and eternity (also, permanent).

Twofold (from Lim’s artist notes, 2018 and 2025)

‘A Tangible Translation’ was something immaterial — giving it body — incarnation — something unseen — becomes flesh — the sacred — becomes tangible — descending. Symbolized — traces — a presence — no longer seen. Painting — sculpture — printmaking — witness — evidence — a presence — no longer observable — series of transformations — the momentary — notions of permanence.

‘Eternity in Fragments’ explores the dual nature — existence — the material — the immaterial — the body — the spirit — distinct — separate — fluid — transition — interconnected — evolving — gradation — traces — not static opposites — part of a continuum — symbolic — transition — corporeality — something beyond — the infinite — can be experienced — the finite — the sacred — the physical world — the spiritual — a vessel — the divine. An ascent — a transfiguration — a human — toward eternity — matter — becoming — luminous. Holding — a trace — not only something to be touched — something to look through — a translucent veil.

Perhaps generalizations or hyperboles

Every thing is also always other things. Nothing is small or vast, or everything is both at once. Writing and speaking about something always remakes it.

Stretches

Some say that a person (also, human) is essentially a body (also, form, material, substance). Biologically speaking, the mind is a projection of the brain whose structures, systems, and functions enable faith and belief.

Many hands applied pressure and moved across a large surface to create the 8-by-4-foot intaglio print and the twelve sequential prints. See that individual bodies inevitably gesture differently. See gestures relate to the visible and concrete: variations, textures, colors, values, hues. Here too they relate to the often invisible and abstract: love, work. What else is in motion, in translation. Close attention (also, devotion, prayer) given to what shifts moment to moment, takes time, stretches over days, years, a lifetime, moves slowly, stops, or appears still.

Lesley-Anne Cao