Tay Bak Chiang’s imagery is rooted in nature and related themes. In the world that he reconstructs in his paintings, tiny animals inhabit the natural landscape, peering out with curious eyes. Birds, fish and frogs dot the composition of leaves and foliage. The brightly coloured geometric planes in Tay’s earlier works, such as this one, are often deconstructions of plants and ponds. The abstracted shapes are distributed across the entire painting surface, such that the plant or leaf features are hardly recognizable. It is the artist’s intention to play with the eye of the viewer, providing little visual clues to decipher his themes. The result is a sense of harmony and the joy of discovery invested by the artist in his work.

Related works by Tay Bak Chiang in the Singtel collection are Tranquility (2005), a set of three paintings that feature birds; and Lotus (Untainted) (2005), an aerial view of a lotus pond with tiny red goldfish flitting through.