As a second-generation Singapore artist, Tay Chee Toh's oeuvre incorporates a wide range of media and influences ranging as widely as batik painting, industrial objects and the surreal. In 1985, Tay was one of the earliest visual artists to receive the Cultural Medallion, the highest cultural award given to deserving arts practitioners, demonstrative of his position as one of the leading Singapore artists of his generation. One of his most recognizable body of works is his works of Dayak women, a recurring figurative motif he turned to at various junctures of his career. This season, Christie's presents two works from different trajectories of the artist's body of works.
Dayak Girl with Pipe (Lot 7067) is an iconic work of the artist from his Dayak Women series, which originated after a trip to Sarawak he undertook to study Dayak women in 1966. Tay appropriated abstract motifs from tribal textiles and body ornamentation to produce decorative surfaces that underscored his vision of the exotic. He began working in batik in the late 1960s, and with the exploration of the medium came the use of batik motifs that, like his use of Dayak motifs, would undergo stylisation in his abstract and figurative works.
View of Singapore River (Lot 7068) shows the iconic old Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation Building rising above shophouses and a bustling quayside. Distinguishing himself from the numerous Singapore artists who have painted the life vein of entrep?t Singapore, Tay focuses on a lesser-seen sight, that of the bank's building. In this regard, he connects the historical significance of the river with the commercial interests that birthed the channels of trade.