Hannah Lim: Fire | Orchid
Artist
Hannah Lim
Wilder Gallery is pleased to present Fire | Orchid, a solo exhibition by Hannah Lim, marking the artist’s second presentation with the gallery. Bringing together new paintings and Lim’s distinctive Snuff Bottle series, the exhibition expands upon her ongoing exploration of cultural inheritance, ornament, and the symbolic language of objects.
The works in Fire | Orchid draw particular inspiration from Lim’s recent journey to Singapore and Malaysia, where she reconnected with extended family and revisited the visual environments that continue to shape her practice. Working from her mixed Singaporean and British heritage, Lim reflects on how architectural detail, decorative traditions, and material culture become carriers of memory — quietly embedding themselves within contemporary forms.
Throughout the exhibition, references to Peranakan architecture, Nonyaware decorative traditions, and the ceremonial presence of footed temple urns emerge through colour, pattern, and structure. These influences are most visible within Lim’s Snuff Bottle works, where intricate surfaces and luminous palettes echo the layered histories of Southeast Asian design while remaining firmly rooted in the artist’s imaginative visual language.
At the centre of the exhibition is the orchid, a recurring motif that lends the exhibition its title. Each Snuff Bottle features an imagined orchid inspired by those encountered in Singapore’s botanical gardens. For Lim, the orchid functions both as a personal emblem of heritage and as a symbol rich with shifting meanings — resilience, hybridity, fragility, and transformation. Rather than botanical representation, these forms operate as speculative symbols, bridging lived experience and cultural mythology.
Alongside the paintings and vessels, Fire | Orchid introduces a new two-tier sculptural shelf created in collaboration with artist Hugo Harris. Drawing on Chinese fretwork alongside European Art Nouveau furniture traditions, the work reflects Lim’s ongoing interest in points of cultural intersection — moments where aesthetic languages meet, merge, and evolve through exchange. Displayed as both functional structure and sculptural object, the shelf extends the exhibition’s dialogue between artwork, architecture, and domestic space.
Across painting, sculpture, and object-making, Lim approaches ornament not as decoration but as a form of storytelling. Her works trace the movement of motifs across geography and time, revealing how identity can be constructed through accumulation, adaptation, and reinterpretation. In Fire | Orchid, personal history and collective visual memory intertwine, offering a contemplative meditation on heritage as something living, fluid, and continually remade.
Date:
26 Feb - 28 March 2026
Hannah Lim b.1998 is a London based artist working between sculpture, installation and drawing. She received her BA in sculpture from the University of Edinburgh and her MFA from The University of Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art. She has recently had solo shows with Pangolin London, Wilder Gallery, Huxley-Parlour, 9 French Place, Edinburgh Printmakers and Commonage Projects whilst also exhibiting in group shows with The Royal Scottish Academy, Young V&A, Bloomberg New Contemporaries and Christies. She was commissioned by Tate Collective to create a sculpture in the style of her ‘Snuff Bottle Series’ for Women’s History Month in 2020 and opened a public sculpture project with Greenwich Peninsula in 2024 for Lunar New Year. Her largest permanent public commission to date was unveiled in August 2025 at West Middlesex Hospital and now forms part of the CW+ art collection. Hannah has also recently collaborated with Dolce & Gabbana for the GenD project, working alongside artisans across Italy to produce a large scale functional sculpture shown in Milan during design week in April 2024 and collaborated with Bvlgari on an artist designed afternoon tea project that opened in September 2024. Hannah has exhibited internationally, with shows in New York, Tokyo, Milan, Tinos, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Montreal, Toronto, Edinburgh, Virginia and Miami. Her first museum solo show opened in February 2026 with The Museum of East Asian Art in Bath.
Education
Foundation Diploma Art and Design, Central Saint Martins, 2016 - 2017
BA Hons Sculpture, Edinburgh College of Art - The University of Edinburgh, 2017 - 2020
MFA Fine Art, The Ruskin School of Art, The University of Oxford, October 2021 - May 2022
Solo and Duo Shows/ Projects/ Commissions
Upcoming public art project Paddington, March, 2026
Fire | Orchid, Wilder Gallery, London, 2026
Reimaginings, Museum of East Asian Art Bath, 2026
The Winged Arches, public sculpture commission and landscape design for West Middlesex Hospital, Isleworth, 2025
The Bell and The Orchid, public sculpture trail for The London Borough of Hounslow, 2025Bvlgari x Hannah Lim
collaboration, Bvlgari Hotel, September 2024
The Enchanted Orchid, Pangolin Artist in Residence solo show, Pangolin London, 2024
Sculptural commission the Lost and Found Yokai installation at the Young V&A, May 2024
GenD collaboration with Dolce & Gabbana, April 2024
Public Sculpture Installation for Lunar New Year with Greenwich Peninsula 2024
Bestiaries, Wilder Gallery, September 2023 (solo show)
Solo presentation with Alcova Milan, April 2023
The Tiger’s Eye, Huxley-Parlour, London, November 2022 (solo show)
Ornamental Mythologies, Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh, September 2022 (solo show)
In the Margins, Commonage Projects, London, April 2022 ( solo show)
Inanimate Creatures, Changing Room Gallery, London, February 2022 (solo show)
Carnalia, Blue Shop Galleries, March 2024 (duo)
Tiger, Dragons and Ghosts of My!, duo show with G.E. Liu , Dinner Gallery, New York, November 2022
Collective Objects, duo show with Hugo Harris, HOME by Ronan Mackenzie, London, 2022
Women’s History Month Commission for Tate Collective, 2022
Porta Sancta, duo with Hugo Harris, Harlesden High Street Gallery, London, 2021
Parts of Self, duo show with Courtenay Welcome, HOME x Cob Gallery Residency Show, London, 2021
Group Shows ( 2022-2024)
I Dreamt We Dreamt of Eden, Hunna Art x Hayaty Diaries, Kuwait, 2026
Myths, Dreams and New Realities, Saatchi Gallery, October 2025
Emerald Green Mineral Green, David Parr House, Cambridge, October 2025
Mark, Mark Making, Time Marking, Upsilon Gallery, New York, July 2025
The Full Spectrum, Clearwell Caves, Gallery Pangolin, Gloucestershire, June 2025
The Blooming Dartmoor, Lian Gallery, China, May 2025
April Sentire, Upsilon Gallery, London, April 2025
Gathered, Lyle Gallery, New York, March 2025
In a Room of Her Own, Upsilon Gallery, London, November 2024
Self (Contained)!, Ryan Lee Gallery, New York, 2024
Material Girls and their Muses, Vitrine Gallery (curated by Marcelle Joseph), London, 2024
Alcova Miami, December 2023
Art Toronto with Duran Marshaal Gallery, October 2023
Alcova Showroom, Milan, April 2023
Arrival, Duran Marshaal Gallery, Montreal, July 2023
KIRKI, Hekátē Studios, Tinos, Greece, July 2023
The Songs of Hecate, Pictorum Gallery, London, 2023
In The Pink, Parlour London, London, 2023
Between Dog and Wolf, Parlour London, London, 2022
British Art Fair with Royal Scottish Academy, Saatchi Gallery, London, 2022
Mise En Place, Friends Artspace, Arlington Virginia, 2022
Eat Drink, Man Woman, 180 The Strand, London, 2022
Red Room, Berntson Bhattacharjee, London, 2022Next, Christie’s, London, 2022
RSA New Contemporaries, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 2022
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London, 2021/2022
Brand work / Collaborations
Apple x Hannah Lim workshop, January 2025
Hannah Lim x Bulgari Hotel Afternoon Tea collaboration, 2024
GenD Dolce & Gabbana 2024 Kim Shui - Pre SS24 collection exhibition 2024
RayBans - Creative Insights 2023
Zao Tang, exhibition supported by Malin and Goetz London, 2021
HOME residency and exhibition supported by Glossier 2021
Digital Artwork commission for Boiler Room and Eastern Margins 2021
Awards
Pangolin Artist in Residence, 2022-2023
Selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries, 2021
Selected for RSA New Contemporaries, 2022
Selected for Home by Ronan Mckenzie x Cob Gallery Studio Residency, supported by Glossier, 2021
Clason-Harvie Bursary, 2020
RSA John Kinross Scholarship, 2020
Selected for Georgia Stephenson’s Patio Project (funded by The Freelands Foundation), 2020
Hospitalfield Residency, 2019
Selected Press
https://www.wallpaper.com/design-interiors/hannah-lim-the-enchanted-orchid-pangolin-londonhttps://metalmagazine.eu/en/post/ha
nnah-lim-reimagining-colonial-chinoiserie https://flanellemag.com/hannah-lim-exclusive-interview/
https://hero-magazine.com/article/241408/hannah-lim
https://bricksmagazine.co.uk/2022/11/16/hannah-lims-sculpture-is-decolonising-chinoiserie/
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ornamental-mythologies-a-lively-witty-study-of-two-cultures-939smqv5l
Architectural Digest:
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/new-generation-of-asian-artists-on-chinese-ceramics Floorr Magazine:
https://www.floorrmagazine.com/issue-28/hannah-limNew Contemporaries:
https://www.newcontemporaries.org.uk/2021/artists/hannah-limIt’s Nice That:
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/hannah-lim-art-sculpture-160721 Wallpaper Magazine:
https://www.wallpaper.com/beauty-grooming/malin-goetz-pop-up-art-gallery-bathhouse- London
