Born in Singapore in 1948, Tay Kiam Hong trained in Western painting at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts at the encouragement of his father and was taught by remarkable artist teachers including Georgette Chen, Chen Chong Swee and See Hiang To. At the same time, he undertook private lessons with Chinese ink masters Lim Yu Jing and Fang Chang Tien. After graduating in in 1965, he pursued a career in interior design, a path he followed until his retirement. While doing so, he continued to practise Chinese calligraphy, ink painting and poetry writing. In the year 2000, he was invited to witness the release of baby turtles in Sentosa, sparking his interest and thereby marking the beginning of his research into marine life. Since then, his art largely revolves around this subject matter which he has come to be known for.

Tay’s squid series seeks to capture the movement of squids as they travel gracefully in large groups. In their natural environment, they resemble beautiful flashes of luminosity in the dark sea like shuttles in the loom. Silver Shuttle 7 presents the artist’s attempt to capture the rhythmic movement of these submerged creatures. Hints of his Western painting influences are revealed through this piece. The framed ink-painting on paper, retaining the usual proportions of Chinese ink-painting – but slightly elongated – is to be viewed horizontally instead of its archetypical vertical presentation. None of the squids overlap, intensifying the visual ambiguity to depict the movement and the sea creatures as a collective. It can be viewed at once as a frieze that represents the moving sequence of a single squid moving from either left to right or right to left, or as an up-close underwater vision of a school of squids.