Trees 1

(Also called Trees Series 3, 树系列3 in the exhibition)

• 2020
• 1260 x 2410 mm
• Chinese ink and colour on paper

Unlike his previous tree abstracts which were dominated by earth tones or black ink strokes, Lim Tze Peng’s trees in his 100th year are big formatted (8 by 4 feet), and immediately arrest his viewer’s eyes. Not only are they large, they are also bold and colourful. And what colours! He uses the brightest and most intense kinds. Here, in Tree 1, the artist has created a rhythmic forest of brown trunks with cyan blue accents like eyes looking out of the paper. The trunks and branches are also more deliberately outlined with emphatic strokes, giving definition rather than ink washes. The result is an almost Dali-like surrealist abstract, a departure from his previous calligraphy-as-trees approach when he first attempted abstract trees. And if the viewers look long enough, the trunks look human, the figures holding hands reminiscent of Henri Matisse’s La Danse, especially so with a similar blue piercing from behind the dancers.