Born in Singapore in 1955, Lim Tiong Ghee is a self-taught artist renowned for his abstract collages. He was Category Winner (Representational), UOB Painting of the Year Competition in 1984 with his ‘Reflection’ watercolour painting, and in 1989 Lim received the Competition’s Top Award for his wrapping paper collage ‘From the Turtledove’.By the late 1980s, the still life had replaced the human figure as subject matter in Lim’s work. Although Lim has used watercolour on paper here, and the image still retains figurative elements, the picture plane is decisively segmented into freestanding shapes and blocks of colour, as if separately collaged onto the surface. It is an indication of Lim’s developmental shift into his signature collages, one of which will win an award in the same year this work was created, and as such this painting can be viewed as a possible preparatory study for a subsequent collage.
