HANNAH LIM
Artist Profile
Hannah Lim is a British-Singaporean artist whose sculptural practice examines the aesthetic and political entanglements between East and West. Drawing on her mixed heritage, Lim revisits historical decorative forms — particularly Chinese snuff bottles — to interrogate the legacy of Orientalism and 18th-century Chinoiserie, where elements of Chinese design were reimagined for European consumption.
Working primarily in ceramic, Lim produces objects that are at once seductive and conceptually pointed. Ornamental surfaces, exaggerated forms and subtle distortions expose the tensions embedded within cross-cultural aesthetics. Her works often hover between function and fantasy, embracing playfulness while addressing the historical weight carried by decorative traditions.
Lim studied Sculpture at the University of Edinburgh and completed an MFA at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. She was shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2021) and RSA New Contemporaries (2022), marking early critical recognition. Recent exhibitions include Bestiaries at Wilder Gallery, London (2023), Ornamental Mythologies at Edinburgh Printmakers (2022), and The Tiger’s Gaze at Huxley-Parlour, London (2022). In 2022–23 she undertook a residency at Pangolin London, further consolidating her position within contemporary sculptural discourse.
Across her practice, Hannah Lim reclaims historically coded forms and reframes them through a lens of hybridity, authorship and cultural inheritance.
