iPRECIATION is delighted to present Distance Resonance – Paintings by Willy Tay, a solo exhibition showcasing the artist’s latest body of works that furthers his exploration of colonial histories and their enduring imprint on contemporary Singapore. Inspired by archival photographs, historical events, and recomposed visual fragments, Tay’s textured oil canvases oscillate between memory and myth. His works transform static images into sites of tension, where the colonial gaze is simultaneously revealed and unsettled.

Central to Distance Resonance – Paintings by Willy Tay is the artist’s wide range of subject matter, including still life, objects, interiors, landscapes, and recomposed photographic snapshots. Tay’s works are largely enigmatic, resisting resolution yet reflecting critically on how power and displacement influence our postcolonial present. Comprising equestrian figures, stoic monuments, and hushed interiors, Tay’s dense compositions bear the weight of accumulated histories. Collectively, these works probe how fragments of collective memory are recontextualized in a postcolonial society that continues to grapple with its hybrid cultural inheritance. The colonial gaze is neither fully present nor absent, nostalgia reveals its fissures, and belonging emerges as an ongoing negotiation.

Beneath Tay’s historical inquiry lies a sensitivity to the city’s rhythms – its imposing architecture that interweaves remnants of empire with postcolonial desire. Spanning works from 2022 to the present, the exhibition frames Singapore as a migrant city shaped by the continuous flow of people across its borders. This migrant condition is less a demographic fact than an enduring temporal condition – a mode of inhabiting time with one foot in departure and another in arrival. In this context, the canvas functions as a threshold where distance collapses into proximity and the act of looking becomes an ethical encounter. The past becomes a living interlocuter, reshaping perception, guiding ethical engagement, and sustaining the ongoing work of seeing.

Among the highlights of this exhibition is Snowfall, in which a seemingly ordinary gathering of men becomes quietly unsettling, suggesting the unseen consequences of decisions whose impact unfolds gradually over time. In Deity, Tay reimagines a historical figure once revered as a benefactor, raising critical questions about how power is remembered and culturally reframed. Meanwhile, Repackaged and retold reflects on the ongoing reinterpretation of Singapore’s histories, underscoring how colonial narratives are continually revised across generations.

The exhibition as a whole affirms painting’s capacity to mediate between rupture and continuity, positioning the canvas as a site where fractures remain suspended in ambiguity. Across these works, history is neither regarded in conclusive terms nor as a burden to be overcome but rather a field of reverberations that influence the present. Through deliberate and sustained acts of looking, viewers are invited to imagine ways of living within a postcolonial society constantly haunted by the shadows of empire.

Venue
iPRECIATION, 50 Cuscaden Road, HPL House #01-01, Singapore 249724

Artists
Willy Tay

Exhibition Dates
April 13 – April 30, 2026

Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday | 9 AM – 6 PM Saturday | 11 AM – 6 PM

Website
https://www.ipreciation.com/

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/ipreciation

Contact
enquiry@ipreciation.com

About the Artist

Willy Tay (b.1974) graduated from LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore in 1994 with a Diploma in Fine Art (Painting). He continued his studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology where he completed his Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) in 1998 and a Master of Arts (Fine Art) in 2004. With a dynamic artistic practice, Tay has participated in prominent solo and group exhibitions in Singapore and internationally. Notable exhibitions include the Impression Culture and Art Festival in Wenjiang Art District of Chengdu, China in 2023, “Do you believe in Angels?” at Equator Art Projects in Singapore and Mo_Space in Manila, Philippines in 2014, “The Realm in the Mirror, the Vision out of Image” at Jinji Lake Art Museum in Suzhou, China in 2013, and “Moments on white” at Osage Gallery in Hong Kong and Singapore in 2007. His most recent group exhibition took place at ART SG with iPRECIATION in Singapore in 2025.

(Text and images courtesy of iPRECIATION)