Tay Bak Koi (b. 1939; d. 2003) is most well-known for his tranquil scenes of roaming buffaloes, fishing villages and kampongs. Born in Singapore, the artist enrolled at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts from 1957 to 1960. While there, he studied under Cheong Soo Pieng and Georgette Chen. Cheong, in particular, encouraged him to experiment and challenge conventional art forms. Although Tay had to earn his livelihood assisting his father, who sold seafood at the market, Tay continued to hone his skills in oil and watercolour painting and sought to develop his own distinctive style. As a result, his oeuvre spans both figuration and abstraction across works in oil, watercolour and ink, demonstrating his mastery of the mediums. In Still Life (1963), abstract objects, largely illegible, are gathered on a tabletop. The objects are outlined in black brushstrokes but remain fragmented as single objects are broken up into planes and areas of colour. It is an early example of Tay’s exploration of abstraction on a vertical format. Its format and orientation is derived from a scheme devised by Cheong Soo Pieng, his teacher, who was drawn towards recasting the hanging scroll from Chinese painting tradition to the look of the easel picture. This work demonstrates his embrace and reception of his teacher’s pictorial schema.
