These two limited-edition lithography prints, done 10 years apart, marks Eng Tay’s preoccupation with larger family issues couched in the Malaycentric vernacular in the 1980s and with pencil-thin outlines; and in the later decades, the focusing on intimacy, primarily of paramours. In Serenity, the couple is locked in an embrace in a slow dance, the woman’s left hand resting on her beau’s right shoulder, and with the two faces angled to viewer, in a loving mood. For the coup de grace, there is a musician taking up the right diagonal, setting the mood. In the other, of the Fisherman’s Family, four roly-poly figures, two big and two small, are enmeshed together as if in a cocoon. If you miss the title’s shout, the little urchin on the right next to the patriarch, dangles a fish, for good measure. Of course, the ubiquitous cat by the small urn is kept at a safe distance. There is a kind of fairy-tale romance in the story of a strapping lad, only 22, beating his way to the United States, the Big Apple no less, to study Art of all things. It was 1969, but those Malaysians venturing abroad mostly headed to Paris and London, and occasionally Rome and Berlin. To Eng Tay, nee Tay Eng Chye, who first found fame as a printmaker, before launching into canvases, huge canvases and sculptures including monumental ones, it was a struggle that led to his being awarded a Retrospective called eng tay: The Exhibition, by Galeri Petronas in 2009. Having survived the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the New York Twin Towers, from his studio in White Street, he spooled some large cathartic works, to reinforce the bond of human relationships. After his early studies at the Art Students League, New York School of Visual Arts and the Pratt Graphics Centre, he worked as a graphic designer before deciding to become a fulltime artist travelling all over the world for visual research and to hold exhibitions – he boasts of nearly 100 solos now. Apart from well-known personalities who collect his works, the institutions are the Fukuyama Museum of Art, Hiroshima in Japan; the Frankie Valli Estate (United States); the Merv Griffin Estate (United States); the New York University; and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. His commissioned monumental sculptures in Kuala Lumpur adorn the Kiaraville SENI Condominiums in Mont Kiara and the Zehn condominium in Pantai Hills.