Gallery view of Passing: Kheng Saik Lim and Kevin Hoertig at Border & Square in Provo. Image by Gina Cavallo.

For a gallery that only recently opened, Border & Square, just south of downtown Provo, feels like a classic gallery space. Set in the large open area between a small framing showroom and the back frame shop, the gallery has a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere, big white walls, and great lighting. Works are laid out well and they are accompanied by some of the best-designed labels I’ve seen.

Gallery owner Kheng Saik Lim opened Border & Square a little over three months ago (though the framing business has been in his back garage for several years) and has held three shows in the space so far. “When I first got to Provo to go to BYU,” shares Lim, “there really weren’t any galleries.” The artist and framer wanted to create a space where other artists could share their work. In a short time, he seems to have done just that and done it well.

This month his own paintings are featured alongside work by Kevin Hoertig. Sans a full curatorial panel, the exhibition opens with a brief thematic statement:

Passing

A contemplation of movement
through space.
Exploring reality’s shifting
tides and alternate states;
consider the world beyond reach.

Kevin Hoertig, “Traveler”, oil on canvas

Kevin Hoertig’s oil paintings reflect an interest in those alternate states and a fascination with nature and mysticism. His human and animal forms hover in a mist of white and seem to be otherworldly creatures. They have a certain 1970s mystical air as well as a spark of danger in their presence. “Communion” and “Traveler” are prime examples of this.

Kheng Saik Lim’s larger paintings are interspersed with Hoertig’s on the walls. His work reflects the “movement through” space aspect of the theme. It is also very personal, narrated by artist statements that share stories of his childhood and personal experiences that influenced each painting.

“A Patch of Lush, Wet Grass” includes a memory:

“As a boy I saw a dead animal decomposing in a field of grass. I noticed the grass (was) especially lush and green where the carcass lay. Ever since then, lush grass and deep rich soil have become a symbol of death and regeneration to me.”

The choice of a sharply bright green against a deep black creates great contrast while somehow also creating a false effect of thick impasto. But the patterning—grass and tiny white flowers meandering upward from a black base—implies movement and escape. The scale of the painting feels life-size, bringing you into the artist’s path as he moves away from a childhood fear.

A similar piece, “Lying Close to the Ground at Dusk” is monochromatically black with tiny white specks that, as you look down the painting, appear star-like, though they are meant to be the same white flowers in the grass. This piece’s subtle imagery fits the artist’s intent to reflect the experience of a grassy field just before night rises. His reflection on this work includes a reference to death (“This image brings me back to a particular time in my early childhood when I became aware that one day I would not exist anymore”), but despite that and the dark palette, the work has a glow and sparkle that is engaging.

The strongest piece in the show is “One Foggy Morning.” A black, bird-like form plummets from above, suspended on what appears to be a wire, with white smoke trailing its path. A white-washed box (perhaps a fireplace or a room within a room) has an open passageway that inexplicably casts a black shadow on the brown marble floor. The artist admits his uncertainty in the label’s description:

Kheng Saik Lim, “One Foggy Morning”, oil on canvas

“I don’t even know what that falling object is, but I wanted it to be an object of chaos in an otherwise pristine space. I feel that all the black items in the painting are different aspects of the same element.”

Though there is a surface darkness to the works by both Kheng Saik Lim and Kevin Hoertig, the overarching feeling of the exhibition is exploratory and curious. The bright ambience of the gallery space may contribute to that, reminding us that these are not real creatures or spaces, but evidence of internal questions and emotional responses to nature and everyday life. Lim’s work in particular is worth watching as is the gallery at Border & Square.

Passing: Kheng Saik Lim and Kevin Hoertig, Border and Square, Provo, through September 31.

Gina Cavallo

Gina Cavallo has been a curator, registrar, and executive director in museums for over 35 years. She spent many years as an art critic for publications in Phoenix. She began her career at the Phoenix Art Museum and the Heard Museum, was a founding curator at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, spent two terms managing exhibitions at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and was the Executive Director at the Mission Inn Foundation & Museum in Riverside, California. Her current role is Director of Development for Taproot Theatre Company in Seattle where she also serves as the curator of the Kendall Center Exhibition Series. She moved to Orem in 2024 with her husband, a theatre faculty member at UVU.