Dayak: Woodblock prints by Tay Chee Toh
4 to 26 February 2012, 11am - 7pm (Closed on Mondays)
NAFA Galleries 1 & 2, NAFA Campus 1 (80 Bencoolen St)
Free admission
Works are for sale

Opening Ceremony: Friday, 3 February 2012, 6pm
Guest of Honour:  Professor Tommy Koh, Ambassador-At-Large, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) is proud to present Dayak: Woodblock prints by Tay Chee Toh, renowned alumnus and the 1985 Cultural Medallion recipient. This is the 10th solo exhibition by the prolific painter-sculptor who is known for his varied and versatile body of work. His oeuvre includes oil, batik, watercolour, printmaking, acrylic, Chinese ink and sculpture. Inspired by the Dayak people of Sarawak, he has created a series of 10 monumental woodblock prints executed on gold and silver fabric. Two of these prints that each span over 4.5 metres across took the artist close to three years to complete. To accompany the impressive prints, the exhibition presents a rare insight into the artist’s creation process with the showcase of some of the original carved print blocks.

Dayak: Woodblock Prints by Tay Chee Toh is the artist’s return to a two-dimensional medium after his last solo exhibition in 2011 that featured hanging mobiles. The woodblock print marries the artist’s technical ability in both the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional; he revisits his carving craftsmanship on the wood boards and re-evaluates his practice as a designer of large scale compositions. The Dayak figures in various curvilinear poses are carved from an essential geometry of circles and lines with a calligraphic grace that travels from one end of the composition to the other. Graphic representations of birds, floral motifs and vases are incorporated into the compositions, which result in an artwork that invokes infinity through the geometry of icons and symbols.

Born in Malaysia, 71-year-old Tay Chee Toh studied fine art at NAFA between 1958 and 1960 and was deeply influenced by his teachers Georgette Chen, Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Wen Hsi and Chen Chong Swee, admiring them for their artistic vision, tenacity and force of creation. He pursues the Nanyang style that his teachers promoted -- to recognise indigenous life and to draw inspiration from local and regional culture. In the past five decades of his artistic practice, the human figure remains a central theme, in particular the Dayak women whom he depicts in various mediums, assimilating influences found in traditional arts such as batik, woodcarving with painting and drawing.

He was also instrumental to the development of the arts in Singapore. Along with seven artists including Wee Beng Chong and Ho Ho Ying in 1963, he co-founded the Modern Art Society Singapore, to explore and develop modern art with zeal; encourage artists to reinterpret nature with new vision and make headway in introducing new techniques and new contexts to art practices as a result.

Ms Bridget Tracy Tan, Director of Institute of Southeast Asian Arts and Art Galleries at NAFA said, “Tay’s own exploration of the woodblock is a result of his own perseverance to refine his imaginative capacity and shape artistic concept from material and memory. Woodblock carving is a disciplined exercise often forgotten in the modern age of current artistic discourse.”

- Annex 1 - Selected artwork
- Annex 2 - Artist’s biography
- Annex 3 - Exhibition essay by Bridget Tracy Tan, Director of Institute of Southeast Asian Arts and Art Galleries, NAFA

For more information or to arrange for an interview, please contact:

Hazel Chan
Manager, Media Relations
Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts
DID : 6512 4017