FOR the Venice Biennale earlier this year, artist Jason Lim created an elaborate 250kg chandelier made up of 1,500 procelain lotus flowers strung together.

It all came crashing down spectacularly - and deliberately - in an event that marked the opening of the Singapore Pavilion at the massive Italian art show.

Now as a follow-up, he has made three versions of the chandelier.

The happy difference this time: These ceramic artworks will remain intact and will hang at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), the New Majestic Bar in Chinatown and in an art collector's home.

Lim, 41, one of four artists representing Singapore at the Biennale this year, tells Life! he was pleasantly surprised that people wanted his works as permanent pieces.

That's because all that remains of the original, called Just Dharma, is a video recording of the crash and the shattered pieces, which he plans to display in another exhibition.

He says: 'I was expecting that after Venice, I would be invited to an art event where they would want me to crash a new chandelier. Then I got these commissions.

'I think people are attracted to the lighting effect, the porcelain material and the lotus motif. Every piece is unique and site-specific.'

Indeed, at $18,000 to $25,000 a piece, all three works are different in size and shape.

Another Dharma, the 21/2m-long chandelier at the New Majestic Bar, is made of 300 lotuses arranged in a slim and long cascade. It dangles in the staircase of the atmospheric bar, which also has commissioned artworks by local artists such as Donna Ong and Yuki Chong.

Then there's Just Another Dharma, a 6m-long version with 1,000 lotuses at SAM. This one is shaped like a large cluster of grapes and hangs from the museum's second-floor ceiling into the central stairwell, which has been painted a deep shade of red.

SAM director Kwok Kian Chow says: 'Dharma, the Wheel or Dao, a central concept in Eastern philosophy, suggests an underlying cyclical order of nature and life. Jason's series of Dharma ceramic works, in their variation, destruction and creation, is a journey and an embodiment of the cycle of life.'

The third chandelier has not been constructed yet. But it will be made of 300 lotuses, half of them glazed to vary the texture.

The collector, an American fund manager who lives in Singapore, declined to be named but says the chandelier will hang in the dining room of her bungalow.

Instead of making the lotus flowers himself at the Jalan Bahar Dragon Kiln as he did for the original chandelier, Lim got a crockery factory in Surabaya, Indonesia, to make the flowers from petal moulds that he created.

He says: 'This frees me up to plan more efficiently, instead of being stuck in the studio doing the production.'

Only a few flowers were broken during the painstaking process of setting up these works.

Lim says with a laugh: 'Accidents happen. But I just say, 'Hey, take it easy, I don't have many to spare.' '

Just Another Dharma will be on display in the Singapore Art Museum till November next year.