Details
Pigment and acrylic on canvas
122 x 122cm
2023
Unframed
Courtesy of the artist
Artist's statement
小学时喜欢画画，我仍然记得级任老师告诉我新加坡有一间艺术学校，以后可以去学画画，那时还小，但心里却记得这件事。
中学毕业，因为有父亲支持，让我有机会来到新加坡报考南洋艺术学院。那时我报读广告设计，因为听说这样容易有出路。
开学前一天，我决定向学院要求换去纯美术系，因为那才是我心之所向的科目，那天，心里如释重负。
不管是生活或画画，面对困惑时跟随自己的心，相信自己的直觉尤为重要，那往往就是答案。
I have loved to draw since I was in primary school. Once, a form teacher told me about an art school in Singapore where I could learn to draw. I will never forget this conversation. After secondary school, with my father's support, I arrived in Singapore to apply to the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.
At first, I enrolled in advertising design because I heard it would offer a more promising path. But the day before school started, I decided to transfer to the fine art department, as fine art was where my heart truly lay. On that day, I felt like a weight had been lifted from my heart.
Whether in life or art, if we follow our hearts and trust our intuition, we can often find our answers.
About Tay Bak Chiang
Tay Bak Chiang paints subjects found in the nature of Singapore and Southeast Asia, such as heliconias, lotus ponds and rocks. He seeks to reinterpret them inventively in terms of form, composition, technique, material and colour. Lotus flowers, for example, are depicted as minimalist forms in bold hues; lotus stalks as thick, unembellished black strokes; and stones as textured shapes and sculptural blocks in intense colours made by combining pigments and traditional Chinese ink. Through these subjects, he expresses his sentiments and philosophies.
Born in 1973, Bak Chiang graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore in 1995 and studied at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, China, in 1997. He was awarded the First Prize in the Chinese Painting category in the 19th and 22nd United Overseas Bank Painting of the Year Competitions (2000 and 2003 respectively). In 2002 he received the Young Artist Award from the National Arts Council of Singapore.
Bak Chiang has held 14 solo exhibitions and has shown at international art fairs, including Art Basel Hong Kong, Art Stage Singapore, Art Miami, Art New York, Art Paris, Art Taipei and Edinburgh Art Fair.