Tay Bak Koi's buffaloes of various colours are arrayed as if seen from a slanted aerial view, nine of them to exude an auspicious aura, framed within a petalled quadrant. On the top right is what looked like the herder, shown infinitesimal but with smug control. The herder's placement varies with painting compositions, sometimes sandwiched among the herd and sometimes outside the buffalo bouquet or astride the buffalo frame and sometimes in twos. Bak Koi's interest stemmed from his childhood days when he used to seeing the loyal and steadfast buffaloes toiling in the fields in Potong Pasir. His buffalo anatomy follows a humped top like a Minangkabau roof, a truncated head, two curved horns, and all with pencil-thin outlines to lessen the sense of mass. Chia Wai Hon described his buffaloes as "tightly stylised creature with a massive body supported on two pairs of inverted V-shaped legs, a small head and a sharp hump..." It's interesting to note that Bak Koi took part in an early group exhibition at the now defunct Salon de Mai in Penang in 1963, and a year later, he held his first solo at Singapore's Tengah Airport Club. In 2007, he was given a Memorial exhibition at Stamford Huse, Singapore followed by two more at Helutrans in 2013 and Artcommune Gallery in 2016. He graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in 1960. At NAFA, he was taught by Cheong Soo Pieng and Georgette Chen. Bak Koi's works were featured in charity greeting cards of the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) in 1985 and 1988.