artcommune proudly presents In Plain Sight: Discovering with Tong Chin Sye, the first posthumous exhibition of Singapore artist Tong Chin Sye (1939 - 2025). Born in Singapore in 1939, Tong was trained in both Western and Chinese art and his dedicated journey in art spanned six decades. The celebrated 2nd-generation artist passed away in February 2025, leaving behind a precious legacy characterised by multi-media explorations and epic adventures.

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Featuring over 20 works spanning the period of 1980s to 2010s, the exhibition provides an intimate survey of Tong’s painting practice across watercolours, oils, mixed media, and Chinese inks. On view from 18 October to 2 November 2025 at artcommune gallery, In Plain Sight: Discovering with Tong Chin Sye officially opens on 18 October, Saturday, 2:00pm - 3:30pm. (RSVP required; kindly contact kenix@artcommune.com.sg)

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Growing up with a passion for art, Tong undertook an apprenticeship in outdoor advertisement painting when he was around 16 or 17 years old. Training under a mentor, he produced paintings on murals and advertising vehicles. He later enrolled as a member of the Equator Art Society so as to attend the fine art classes offered by the Society and honed his techniques in realist painting. In the late 1950s, Tong attended the Singapore Academy of Fine Arts (founded by the late Mdm. Sun Yee) for further art training and graduated in 1960.

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In the 1960s, Tong began a career as an illustrator in advertising as it was hard to make a living as a full-time artist. He also held position as a painting instructor at the Equator Art Society and later taught as a part-time lecturer in Western Art at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. For the next few decades, even as Tong juggled with his day job, art teaching and raising a family, he continued to paint and travel widely, participating in numerous local and overseas exhibitions. In 1987, Tong clinched the first prize in the Port of Singapore Authority Open Art Competition. He also represented Singapore at the Flemish Watercolour Days held at Zaventen, Belgium in 1988.

Life in Old Singapore is a recurring theme in Tong’s work throughout the decades. Some of Singapore’s most distinct cultural landmarks with gazetted shophouses and places of worship were once the residential enclaves and everyday playgrounds for older generations of Singaporeans. Tong, for instance, grew up swimming with friends in the Singapore River. Like many artists his generation, he fervently chronicled the everyday experiences and street scenes in Singapore before the rapid onslaught of urbanisation in the 1980s began to redefine city life. These scenes might have vanished with time, but for those like Tong who lived their histories, the memories remain wistfully familiar and close to the heart.

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Throughout his life, Tong was an avid traveller and had explored various cities in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East in his painting journey. Often finding shelter in humble lodgings and cycling through the streets, he moved alongside the pulse of the city. He painted not from a distance, but from within the community, registering the cultural atmosphere and interior lives of the subjects that he captured.

​Between the 1980s and 1990s, Tong created a body of mixed media work that demonstrates the unusual combination of plaster on canvas, watercolour, oil and acrylic. To employ this combination, he first applied a thick coat of plaster upon the canvas surface before proceeding to sketch and carve out parts of the composition on the plaster layer while it remained wet. He then completed the painting with oil (and at times, acrylic in addition to oil) and watercolour pigments to create a fluid and vivid scene with distressed effects.

​From distant city views to close-up scenes, In Plain Sight: Discovering with Tong Chin Sye follows the late artist’s footsteps and artistic evolution, bringing audience closer to the contemplative curiosity and trailing wake of human rhythm at the heart of Tong’s work. Curated by Anna Choong, the exhibition invites us all to be on this journey with Tong: to pause, to linger, and to experience the quiet poetry woven into the everyday.