Singaporean Artist Gains International Following For Her Sculptures Of Body Parts

Lim Qi Xuan is a sculptor better known by the moniker QimmyShimmy. A designer by day and artist by night, she fuels her two passions with caffeine and big dreams.

Her “creepy-cute” miniature sculptures fuse the two worlds of the real and the imagined, treading the fine lines between horror and beauty. Her aesthetic sensibilities are shaped by her love for fantasy stories, old curiosities, time travel and a yearning for make-believe.

QimmyShimmy’s works have been showcased in cities around the world, such as New York, L.A., London, Rome and Tokyo. She is currently based in Singapore.

More: Lim Qi Xuan, Instagram

She finds inspiration from everyday objects, and pursues her hobby despite being a graphic designer by profession as “there is a part of me that just wants to make things that express my inner world and strangeness”.

“I was trying to showcase a future scenario of genetically modified animals, and started sculpting then,” she said.

“I have always been quite fascinated with the tactility of flesh and skin,” she said.

Objects have two sides to them, she said. She mused that flesh is symbolic both of life and death, as something that can at once be capable of being alive and pulsing, but can in the next moment lose that quality.

She compared it to how people find realistic dolls pretty but do not want to sleep in the same room as them.

“I like my art to have that similar tension; to present something precious and charming, but then there are these little elements that creep you out,” she said.