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The world of Grace Lim

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Local artist, known worldwide, remains under the radar here

TRIBUNE PHOTOS: CHRISTOPHER OERTELL - Grace Lim stands in front of her recent contemporary abstract works and in the spacious art studio in her Happy Valley home. She has put on about 30 exhibits in the past seven years - mostly abroad.Following in her family’s footsteps, Grace Lim went the academic and business route, going to college, teaching, working for financial firms such as Wells Fargo and selling insurance.

But, it wasn’t her destiny, as the Happy Valley resident has discovered in the past decade.

She’s an artist, from inside to out, living frugally, studying the art of Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, internalizing the feeling of this and that and how they relate, and painting contemporary abstract art that has drawn rave reviews in China and elsewhere. And she greatly holds on to her independence, wanting to be Grace Lim the artist, hoping to build a legacy through her process and her product.

“I’m not a good narrator or speaker,” she says. “But I share my experiences, my joy and bliss. I live simply and (frugally) and face problems, and I still feel the peace.

“I have friends who have tension. This (art-making) is really comfortable. I see beautiful things with ease. Where I see places not beautiful, I clean them up, where my heart takes it.”

Lim takes great inspiration from the writings of Khalil Gibran, an early 20th-century artist, poet and writer who penned words that she lives by. The creeks, rivers and seas are one. Life and death are one. Parents are like the bow, the children the arrow.

“I trust Khalil Gibran,” she says. “He has a lot of good ideas. He gives my brain good nutrients. ... I think a lot about relationships and families. They feed us.”

She even makes a connection between calligraphy and golfing — the looping motion of each action.

TRIBUNE PHOTOS: CHRISTOPHER OERTELL - Grace Lim stands in the spacious art studio in her Happy Valley home. She has put on about 30 exhibits in the past seven years - mostly abroad.The thing is, not many people know Lim, a Malaysian-born Chinese woman, in Portland or the United States. She has displayed art in China, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia and Europe, including Denmark and Paris, but not many places in the United States. She’s enjoyed about 30 exhibits in the past seven years, going back to when she put aside her financial career to work solely on art. Kerry Dugan, a public relations professional, hopes to help Lim with exposure and show Portland what kind of talent she is.

Lim has been asked to put together an exhibition, as well as a book, of her work for the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts in China by October 2016. It’s her big project right now. She also will give a talk, which doesn’t come easily for her, although she communicates well.

“I’m working on a book, so I’m not here and there” trying to articulate things, she says.

Lim, 50, has studied much about art history. “It began a long time ago,” she says of her fascination with art. “I read a lot of books.”

She grew up in Malaysia, her parents successful international business people. They wanted her to be an attorney. She lived in Singapore, studied in England and spent six years in Europe. Before moving to Portland 20 years ago, she lived in San Francisco. “I wanted to spend my life in four seasons,” she says of Portland. “Cycle of life. I know how to live my life in balance.”

She found a nice house in Happy Valley, with a big backyard and a great space for art.

Lim started drawing, one of her early works was an eagle. Then she expanded her horizons, excelling in contemporary abstract because it spoke to her, conveyed her feelings.

TRIBUNE PHOTOS: CHRISTOPHER OERTELL - The Nine Dragons work by Chen Rong, set against one of her works, has inspired Happy Valley painter Grace Lim.“She’s really a perfectionist,” Dugan says.

Lim has developed her own unique painting style. She expanded on the traditional water-and-ink painting by mixing in sea salt, and the mixture spreads as it dries, forming “natural images,” she says. Lim has been influenced by many artists, including Chen Rong from 13th-century China. He was known for his depiction of dragons, and Lim rolls out a long painting of his — “Nine Dragons” — to show the similarities, Rong’s work being done with ink and blown wine.

“She has replicated 2,000-year-old brush strokes, but with her own modern style,” Dugan says. “The Chinese love that. There’s nothing like that in China.”

“No matter how there is change, I still feel the pull of tradition,” Lim adds.

She enjoys reading about scholars, poets and painters from hundreds of years ago, relishing the past and retelling in the present. Dugan says Lim has educated herself on art history. She has read much about Van Gogh, and even worked to replicate some of his paintings.

Lim has been well-received in China, which has worked to expand its arts culture in recent years. She says it’s been different evolving as an artist, while feeling the pull from her highly successful parents to be like them.

Grace Lim feeds off tradition, while also tapping into contemporary things and feelings, to make her art.“I wish they know and agree to what I’m doing,” she says. Dugan says it’s very important for Lim to be her own person among family members — she really wants her work to speak for her. And Lim downplays the notoriety she received being part of Mayor Charlie Hales’ delegation visiting Portland’s sister city of Suzhou, China, in 2013.

Art is her calling. Business is just something she must do.

“We’re trying to make her more well-known,” Dugan says. “I can’t believe she’s not more well-known here.”

Lim hopes to achieve some openings in Portland and, eventually, the Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City.

“That’s my dream,” she says.


For more on Lim, see her website, www.artbygracelim.com.


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