Tay Bak Koi is a second-generation artist known for his oil and watercolour portrayals of local scenes. His style combined realism and fantasy, a product of the Nanyang style of blending modernist and Chinese painting. Tay studied at NAFA from 1957 to 1960 under the tutelage of pioneer artists including Georgette Chen and Cheong Soo Pieng. Encouraged by his teachers to venture boldly beyond what was conventional, it was the spirit of experimentation that fuelled and shaped Tay’s artistic practice and his fame as a painter.Tay had held at least 14 solo shows, numerous group exhibitions locally and commissioned works by the Singapore government and corporations in his lifetime. He had exhibited in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Middle East, Europe and the United States of America. These included Impression: The Art of Tay Bak Koi at the National Museum Art Gallery (1990), the inaugural exhibition at the National Museum Art Gallery (1976), the Singapore Art Exhibition in Tel Aviv, Israel (1980), and the 1st and 2nd Brunei-Singapore Art Exhibition at the National Museum Art Gallery (1989 and 1990).His tranquil and otherworldly scenes of roaming buffaloes and fishermen in waiting were perhaps his most well-known motifs, his oeuvre also includes realistic and abstract works in oil and watercolour that demonstrate his artistic sensibilities and mastery of the mediums.