Born in 1954 in Singapore, Ng Yak Hwee is a graduate of Singapore’s former Nanyang University (Botany major). An accomplished painter and sculptor, Ng received the 1987 Silver Medal from the Salon des Artistes Français, and won First Prize (Figurative category) in the 1992 UOB Painting of the Year Competition.‘Orchid Island’ from 1986 is the oldest work by Goh in the Museum’s collection and depicts an expanse of beach, with recognisable forms of overturned and beached traditional fishing boats appearing to wait for the tide to turn. The subject, Orchid Island, lies off the Southeast coast of Taiwan and until 1967 it was off-limits to the public, thereby preserving the traditions of the Tao - the Taiwanese aborigines who centuries ago migrated from the Batan Archipelago and who survive from fishing and farming. Goh made his first visit in 1983, keen to record the inhabitant’s unchanged way of life.
