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Hings Lim

Design & Creative Technology · Selected Work

Web & UI · 3D & Real-time · Exhibition & Spatial · Fabrication

Designer and creative technologist working across screen, space, and code, with over a decade of work for museums, galleries, and international art fairs. Builds websites end to end, from information architecture to front-end code, and writes Rust tools for large-scale image processing; designs exhibition environments from previsualization through fabrication and installation; and creates procedural 3D for virtual exhibitions presented with LACMA and the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, as well as virtual production for film. Exhibiting installation artist working with embedded systems, digital fabrication, and real-time projection, featured in the Los Angeles Times and Frieze.

[Résumé · PDF, 119KB]

Virtual Exhibitions & Virtual Production — EPOCH Gallery and David Kelley

Role
Procedural 3D Modeler; Previs, Virtual Production & VFX Artist
Year
2021–2024
Partners
EPOCH Gallery, LACMA Art + Technology Lab, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Honor Fraser Gallery, David Kelley
Tools
SideFX Houdini, Rhino3D + Grasshopper, Unreal Engine

Architecture and environments for virtual exhibitions with major institutional partners, built mainly in SideFX Houdini with a procedural, node-based approach: parametric systems for massing, facade articulation, and repeating structural elements, so models could be revised non-destructively and optimized for real-time rendering. The same approach carried into a virtual production with the filmmaker David Kelley.

Echoes, a virtual exhibition hosted by EPOCH Gallery in collaboration with the LACMA Art + Technology Lab and funded by the Algorand Foundation, 2022. Modeled, textured, and lit the full virtual environment in which the exhibition was presented.
Los Angeles cultural landmarks — LACMA, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the SBE building, and the Japanese Pavilion — rebuilt for the Echoes environment, 2022. Modeled in SideFX Houdini and Rhino3D, rendered in Unreal Engine.
Virtual installation by American Artist in Echoes, EPOCH Gallery, 2022. Modeled and laid out the full piece with physics and cloth simulation so the materials settle the way they would in the room.
3D modeling and topology cleanup for Jen Liu’s virtual installation in Echoes, EPOCH Gallery, 2022. Also modeled and cleaned up works by Gordon Cheung and Jennifer West for the same exhibition.
Replicants, a virtual exhibition at EPOCH Gallery, 2021. 3D modeling of the street environment and the neon signage that carries the exhibition’s identity through it.
Virtual production for David Kelley’s The Book of the Dead (work in progress), 2021–2022. Developed previs in Unreal Engine with the director to lock shot design before the shoot, built the virtual environments and set layout, supported real-time camera tracking on set, and created particle-based VFX in Houdini delivered as passes for compositing.
The Book of the Dead, exterior environment: railway and forest, 2021–2022.
The Book of the Dead, mine interior, 2021–2022.

Exhibition & Spatial Design — SPARC

Role
Creative Technology Lead
Year
2022–present
Venues
Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, LACMA, Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Laband Art Gallery, Durón Gallery
Tools
SketchUp, Illustrator, InDesign, large-format and vinyl production

Environmental graphics, vinyl installations, didactic wall text, and caption systems for exhibitions at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, LACMA, Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Laband Art Gallery, and Durón Gallery. Translated dense historical subject matter into legible communication adapted to each venue’s architecture, audience, and scale. Built 3D layouts in SketchUp to resolve artwork placement, sightlines, visitor flow, and lighting, and presented them to curatorial and executive stakeholders for approval before build-out.

SketchUp exhibition mockup for Painting in the River of Angels: Judy Baca and The Great Wall at LACMA, 2024. Pre-visualized artwork placement, display case positioning, and visitor circulation as presentation materials for curatorial review before committing to fabrication and installation.
Exhibition mockup for The Great Wall of Los Angeles at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, 2023. Pre-visualized wall layout, mural section sequencing, and didactic text positioning, so the curatorial team could evaluate environmental graphics and spatial relationships before installation.
Interior perspective at visitor eye level, 2024, showing the relationship between environmental graphics, didactic panels, and artwork. Used to evaluate sightlines, text legibility, and the spatial rhythm of the exhibition before build.
SketchUp model of the Durón Gallery exterior at SPARC’s Venice campus, 2024. Modeled the gallery architecture to support exhibition planning, signage placement, and visitor wayfinding from the street entrance.

Digital Ecosystem Redesign — SPARC

Role
Creative Technology Lead
Year
2022–present
Partners
Social and Public Art Resource Center, Digital Mural Lab
Tools
Figma, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, WordPress, PHP

Owned the end-to-end redesign and rebrand of a six-site digital ecosystem: the main SPARC site, the Great Wall Institute and MuralMemoirs subdomains, SPARC Shop, the MuralShield store, and Artistic Director Judy Baca’s site. The work covered information architecture, wireframes, responsive UI, and a shared component, template, and brand-guideline library that keeps patterns consistent across every property.

A decade of legacy archive content was restructured so visitors can move between the main site and its subdomains without losing their place, while preserving the organization’s historical identity. Designs were carried through to implementation in HTML/CSS/JavaScript and WordPress, with CMS migrations, staging deployments, and hosting managed across all six properties.

Production Pipeline & Tools — SPARC

Role
Creative Technology Lead
Year
2022–present
Tools
Rust, Figma, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro

Established the studio’s design pipelines and file structures: Figma for collaborative production, and Photoshop workflows for concurrent editing of large-scale mural files. Built command-line tools in Rust to automate processing and validation of multi-gigapixel mural image files, including batch resizing, tiling, and stitching. Photographed murals and artworks as color-accurate, multi-shot captures, stitched and retouched for archival records and fine-art reproduction, and created motion graphics for web, social, and in-exhibition display.

Booth Design for International Fairs — Richard Koh Fine Art

Role
Creative Executive, Visual Identity & Exhibition Design
Year
2016–2019
Fairs
Art Basel Hong Kong, VOLTA New York, Taipei Dangdai, Art Central Hong Kong, Art Stage Singapore, India Art Fair, Asia Now Paris, Bazaar Art Jakarta, Art021 Shanghai

Booth layouts, sightlines, artwork placement, and spatial flow for 8+ international art fairs a year across 6 countries. Presented design proposals to the gallery principals, then supervised installation crews on site within tight load-in windows, venue restrictions, and fixed budgets. Each fair posed the same challenge: making the gallery’s presence distinct on a dense floor of neighboring exhibitors.

Art021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, 2017. Designed a symmetrical booth layout responding to the venue’s heritage architecture.
Art Jakarta, 2017. Solo artist presentation for Yusra Martunus within a hotel ballroom venue. Designed a raised white platform floor to visually lift the booth above the surrounding carpet.
Art Central Hong Kong, 2017. Corner booth presenting multiple artists. Balanced a dense grid hang against individually spaced sculptural pieces to create visual variety that draws the eye from the main aisle.
VOLTA New York, 2018. A narrower booth within a pier venue, where the tighter footprint required disciplined placement. Laid out the artworks across three walls, using a denser grid arrangement to create depth within the limited space.

Throughput — island gallery, New York, 2026

Role
Sole artist; independently curated, designed, fabricated, and installed
Year
2026
Tools
Rust on Raspberry Pi Pico, Autodesk Fusion 360, 3D printing, resin casting, CNC, SideFX Houdini

Four bodies of work on the relationship between bodies, materials, and technological systems. The exhibition sets machine learning architectures alongside organic materials, interactive elements, and spatial design.

Top-down 3D rendering of the full gallery floor plan, 2026, rendered in SideFX Houdini. Shows the placement of all works, circulation paths, and the spatial relationship between the four bodies of work. The same planning view is used to present exhibition and booth layouts.
Perspective Houdini render of the same layout at eye level, 2026. Used to evaluate the visitor’s experience at eye level: sightlines, scale relationships between works, and the visual rhythm of the gallery as a whole.
Installed view, 2026, showing the relationship between works. The copper and turmeric interactive sound piece in the foreground, two turmeric-treated projection screens suspended from ceiling to floor creating a spatial divide, and an aluminum ML diagram visible on the far wall. The hanging screens function as both projection surfaces and environmental architecture, partitioning the gallery and shaping how visitors navigate between works.
Diagram (Convolution), 2026. Detail of a hand-engraved aluminum plate depicting a convolutional neural network architecture, inked with bone black pigment. The aluminum form was designed in Autodesk Fusion 360 and CNC-manufactured from technical drawings submitted to an external fabricator. The engraving was done by hand, translating a complex technical system into a material, tactile object.
Spirited, 2026. Detail of the interactive sound piece showing the circuit board, copper wiring, and turmeric powder cast. Built as an embedded system: a Raspberry Pi Pico programmed in Rust converts electromagnetic signals picked up by the copper conductors into sound, responding to visitor proximity and ambient electromagnetic activity. The visible electronics and raw material are intentional, keeping the technology exposed rather than concealed.

Specter in the Gate — Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, CA, 2024

Role
Sole artist; independently curated, designed, fabricated, and installed
Year
2024
Support
Andy Warhol Foundation
Tools
SideFX Houdini, Unreal Engine 5, MadMapper, SketchUp

Site-specific exhibition situated close to the historical location of Santa Ana’s former Chinatown, extending the visitor experience beyond the gallery walls into the surrounding urban context. The spatial design guides visitors from a sculptural environment through a partition into an immersive projection space and a video screening area, creating several distinct experiential zones within a single gallery. Developed across a year-long residency, supported in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation. Featured in the Los Angeles Times and Frieze.

SketchUp pre-visualization render produced before fabrication, 2024, with dimensions marked and a human figure for scale. Used to plan sculpture placement, partition position, the projection zone, and wall-mounted works, and to confirm spatial relationships and visitor flow before committing to the build.
Installed view, 2024. The sculptural structures, fabricated in brass tubing and human hair, alongside the real-time projection-mapped piece built in Unreal Engine 5 and MadMapper, which casts moving shadows across the gallery. The view establishes the visual connection between the two environments before the visitor moves through the space.
Visitors navigating the exhibition, 2024. The projection equipment, sculptural structures, and archival photographs coexist in a single open environment. The projector and its infrastructure are visible rather than hidden, making the technology itself part of the spatial experience.
At Night (Santa Ana’s Chinatown), 2024. A CGI video reconstructing the former Chinatown, with buildings modeled in Houdini, fire VFX, and rendering in Unreal Engine 5, viewed here through the narrow corridor created by the partition. A designed compression of space that shifts the visitor from the open sculptural environment into an enclosed projection room.

Graphic & Editorial Design — Richard Koh Fine Art

Role
Creative Executive, Visual Identity & Exhibition Design
Year
2016–2019
Partners
artists, writers, curators, Skira Editore
Tools
InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop

Maintained and evolved the gallery’s visual identity as a design system across 20+ exhibitions in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, and across owned and third-party platforms (website, Artsy, Ocula, social, print). Each exhibition began as a campaign identity developed with the artist, then extended into print collateral, advertising, and social. Alongside that ran the editorial work: monographs co-published with Skira Editore, exhibition catalogues, and a year-in-review almanac that doubled as the gallery’s institutional archive.

Exhibition posters for the gallery’s program, 2016–2019. Each was developed with the exhibiting artist, translating the exhibition’s concept into a campaign identity that extended across print collateral, digital advertising, and social media.

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Haffendi Anuar, Migratory Objects.

Kedsuda Loogthong, Mother. Bangkok program.

Eiffel Chong, I Dim The Sun So That Dusk Arrives Earlier.

Anton Mallari, Kasalanan (Sins).

Hasanul Isyraf Idris, HOL Chapter 2.3.

Joshua Kane Gomes, These Things We Do.

Nopchai Ungkavatanapong, Recent Works.

Book design for three monographs by Natee Utarit, published by Skira Editore (Italy) in collaboration with Richard Koh Fine Art, 2017–2019. Cover concepts, interior layout, image sequencing, and typographic treatment, through to print production.
Artist monograph for Nadiah Bamadhaj, published by Skira Editore. These publications functioned as both critical texts and brand-building assets, distributed to collectors, institutions, and the international art press.
The gallery’s annual almanac, a year-in-review publication documenting exhibitions, art fair presentations, artist collaborations, and programming. Both an institutional archive and a gift to collectors and partners.
Interior spreads showing editorial layout, image sequencing, and typographic hierarchy. Managed the full editorial process from manuscript through print production, coordinating with writers, photographers, and printers.
Editorial spread documenting the gallery’s Southeast Asian Arts Residency program, balancing photographic documentation against typographic hierarchy.

Auction Events & Online Bidding — Henry Butcher Art Auctioneers

Role
Creative Executive, Branding & Event Design
Year
2014–2016
Scope
live auctions, pre-auction previews, online bidding

End-to-end auction events at hotel ballroom and gallery scale, from pre-auction exhibition layout through stage design and the live auction environment, under one brand standard from catalogue to stage. Also implemented the company’s online auction system: live bidding integrated into the website and run on site during sales, with a live lot display converting bids in real time across five currencies for regional bidders.

Live auction environment for 300+ attendees in a hotel ballroom, 2014–2016. Designed the branded stage backdrop, lot projection layout, lighting plan, and seating arrangement: branded panels flanking the podium, overhead projection displaying lot information, and an artwork presentation easel.
Pre-auction exhibition preview, 2014–2016, held at a separate venue one week before the sale. Designed artwork placement and visitor circulation to build bidder confidence. As the first touchpoint of the auction, the preview sets buyer expectations before they enter the auction room.
Stage detail, 2014–2016, showing the branded environment system at close range. Every surface and element reinforced one consistent brand standard, from typography to staff presentation.
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© 2026 Hings Lim