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What does patience look like?
Youngjin Lim’s work returns again and again to a figure called Tabom. At first glance, Tabom may appear like a familiar character or a small sculptural being. Yet within its gentle face, quiet posture, and distant gaze, Lim gives form to something deeper: the time it takes to endure, wait, and slowly become.
For Youngjin Lim, patience is not simply about holding on. It is a process of moving through roughness, uncertainty, and imperfection until something begins to take shape. Tabom carries the traces of waiting, repetition, hesitation, and the quiet will to continue.
We often live with the pressure to see results quickly. Youngjin Lim’s Tabom offers a different rhythm. Even when nothing seems to be changing on the surface, something may still be forming within.
Light remains on a surface shaped by time
Bronze plays an important role in Youngjin Lim’s sculptural practice. A bronze Tabom is not born with its glow already intact. It must pass through a long process of sanding, polishing, and repeated touch before its surface begins to reveal a quiet shine.
This physical process connects closely to Lim’s idea of patience. While the surface is being refined, the work may seem almost unchanged. But through that repetition, dullness gives way to warmth, and roughness begins to hold light.
Youngjin Lim’s bronze sculptures invite us to look beyond the shining surface. Standing before the work, we begin to sense the labor, waiting, and care that came before it. Tabom quietly reflects a way of living: time spent slowly shaping oneself can eventually become its own kind of light.
A world carried through sculpture, painting, and digital media
Tabom does not remain within a single medium. Youngjin Lim first developed the figure through sculpture, but its world continues to expand through painting and digital media. Although each medium moves differently, they are connected by the same central question: What do we carry through time, and what does that time leave behind?
In painting, Tabom takes on another rhythm. Through oil paint, color builds slowly across the surface, and the image settles into balance little by little. The final points of light feel like small moments of certainty after a long process.
In digital media, Tabom enters a broader universe. Sculpture and painting reveal the figure’s form and emotional presence, while digital work opens the space around it. Rather than separating sculpture, painting, and digital art, Youngjin Lim connects them through Tabom as a shared center.
The feeling left by things that shine slowly
Youngjin Lim’s work does not speak loudly. It stays with the viewer in a quieter way, slowly unfolding the longer one looks. Tabom’s face feels innocent yet slightly unfamiliar, gentle yet absorbed in thought.
Tabom is not a perfect being. At times it seems still, almost stone-like. At other times, it appears to be searching, dreaming, or waiting for something just out of sight. That sense of incompleteness makes Tabom feel close to us.
Through Tabom, Youngjin Lim proposes another pace within an impatient world. It is okay if the result is not yet visible. While we spend time with Tabom, we may begin to think about our own process as well. Things that shine slowly often remain the longest.
To see more works by Youngjin Lim:
🌐 Visit the artist website
📸 View more works on Instagram
