Lim became fascinated with glazes in the early days of her studies. It was the breadth of expression and the sometimes unpredictable nature of the glazes that energized Lim. This vitality of surface-the skin of the pot-has been a constant in Lim's works since her first exhibition in 1983. Over the past two decades, her early layering and trailing of glazes has evolved to draw exclusively upon the infinite, and subtle range of matt blacks and whites- signature to her contemporary spires and orbs. What Lim has achieved is that mature balance between form and surface.

When one encounters an installation of Jessie Lim's ceramic forms, it is a fantasy world reminiscent of a cluster of blooms under a microscope, a constellation, or a coral seascape that we conjure, rather than a pedigree pointing to Japanese or Chinese ceramic traditions. These clustered forms engage in a spatial tension, at once repelling with their thorn-encrusted spires and urchin-like needles, yet deliciously sensual and provocative in their stillness.

Lim's installations have been photographed from above, seen as a guest would encounter her work overlooking a hotel lobby, such as her installation at the Landaa, part of the Four Seasons Group in the Maldives. Hovering on a glass platform, this cluster of spires and orbs is one of four installations Lim was commissioned to do for the new hotel due to open in October 2006 along with an installation of 'sea-urchin' pieces, appropriately in the Landaa's Reef Club, and two exterior installations at the Kuda Huraa hotel, one a flotilla of spires in a shallow pool of water and the other in the Japanese Zen tradition of a raked bed of sand. These are some of the largest and most technically adroit forms Lim has complete, the Spires measuring up to five-feet tall and casting wonderful reflections on the pool, They offer a kind of surreal landscape and beckon contemplation.
 

-  an excerpt from 'Ceramics Redefining Sculpture', World Sculpture News, Summer 2006, Gina Fairley.