Tay Chee Toh (b. 1941) is part of the group of artists often referred to as the Second Generation. This group includes artists such as Anthony Poon, Thomas Yeo, Goh Beng Kwan, Eng Tow and Chieu Shuey Fook. The majority of these artists emerged onto the art scene during the 1950s to 1970s. As an artist, Tay’s artistic oeuvre encompasses a broad spectrum of mediums and styles, with works ranging from painting, sculpture and batik. Born in Johor in 1941, Tay first started practicing art in high school. His older brother noticed his aptitude for the subject, and enrolled him at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in Singapore. Tay studied art under the tutelage of established Singapore artist Cheong Soo Pieng; Cheong was also one of the major influences in Tay’s early practice in Nanyang art.The dayak culture is a common subject matter in many of the later period Nanyang works produced during the 1960s; the Ten Men Group popularized Sarawak as a painting destination for many Nanyang artists. In 1966, Tay undertook a solo trip to Sarawak. There, he encountered the indigenous Dayak culture which would subsequently form the inspiration for many of his later artworks. Tay started to explore in detail the use of dyak motifs and subject matters, and his use of motifs gradually morphed into a form of decorativist approach in his art. When the artist entered his Abstraction phases during the 1970s, he continued to adapt these motifs into the organic abstract forms his later period painting and batik works are known for. Woodblock print art was in trend during the 1950s and 1960s, and like many of his peers, Tay also experienced a phase of producing artworks in this medium. Very few of his works have survived from this period, but the artist was then widely recognized for his talent in woodblock print. During the late 2000s, the artist started to reexplore this medium, and in 2012, the artist held a solo show “Dayak: Woodblock Prints by Tay Chee Toh” at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) which featured a series of his recent woodblock works. The Dayak series of works features some of the largest woodblock prints ever made locally as a single pictorial composition, and are printed on textile rather than paper. The diptych mural, Enjoying the Afternoon, was one of the major pieces from the NAFA exhibition, and demonstrates a complex handling of the subject matter. The theme is based on the everyday life of a dayak community. The artist paid particular attention to the rendition of detail in the textiles and background motifs, highlighting the decorative use of patterning in this work. In this artwork, the artist collapsed the division between the foreground and background through the interweaving of the motifs; this reinforces the sense of flat perspective in the artwork.
