Nicholas Tay

  • Nicholas Tay (b. 1977) is a multidisciplinary artist of Singaporean-Chinese descent whose work navigates the emotional terrain of identity, migration, and cultural memory. Drawing from his own lived experience as part of the Chinese diaspora, Tay uses figuration to explore the complexities of belonging — often centering figures who exist in liminal, overlooked, or misunderstood spaces.

    Working primarily in drawing, painting, and photography, Tay blends expressive mark-making with refined draftsmanship. His figures, often rendered in stark monochrome, are layered with bursts of saturated color, floral motifs, or loose, gestural abstraction — a visual tension that mirrors the internal negotiations of diaspora life: strength and vulnerability, silence and expression, absence and longing.


    Whether portraying migrant workers at rest, queer couples claiming visibility, or familial moments heavy with unspoken emotion, Tay’s work foregrounds tenderness as a radical act. He is particularly interested in the quiet power of those who are rarely centered — giving form to stories that resist reduction, sentimentality, or stereotype.


    Tay received his formal training at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. He currently divides his time between Hong Kong and his studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, located on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and skwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) peoples. His work has been exhibited in Vancouver, Seoul, Bangkok, and Rome.

"My works are portraits of our longing and discontent. Drawing, painting and photography are merged together to render and frame the human figure as the central metaphor in scenes depicting our conscious and subconscious relationship with memory. Specifically, the selective mental filters of how we choose to remember our formative experiences. Often drawing from my personal Chinese immigrant experience in Canada, much of my work is an autobiographical exploration of what it means to be foreign in one's home — to question the balance of appreciation and resentment, to explore the constant contortions for relevance, and the dilution of cultural identity in order to fit in. My intention for sharing this personal experience is to open a doorway into our shared human story and build a bridge of joint empathy."

-Nicholas