Chng Seok Tin is one of Singapore’s most versatile and engaging multidisciplinary artists. Born in 1946 and educated in Singapore, UK, France and USA, the artist and published writer has held 26 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 100 group exhibitions since the ’70s. Featuring printmaking, drawing, painting, collage, photography, installation, and largely mixed media and sculpture following her visual impairment in 1988, Chng's art practice is distinguished by her unflagging spirit and social engagement, her works speaking powerfully of the human condition. She was named Woman of the Year 2001 by Her World magazine. In 2005, she received the Cultural Medallion for her contributions to visual arts in Singapore.

Chng Seok Tin was born in 1946 in Singapore. Her interest in art began in Chung Cheng High School, first as a theatrical make-up artist for the school’s Drama Society and then as a member of the Art Society. This was for her a “wonderful time” because she was able to take part in exhibitions at the Victoria Memorial Hall. When she graduated, she studied Western art under a distinguished art master Yeo Hwee Bin, learning still life, watercolour, oil painting, sculpture, and going on excursions to practise landscape painting and learn from nature.

With a Certificate in Education from the Teachers’ Training College, Chng began her working life teaching Chinese as a second language at Tanjong Katong Girls School. Ten years later, in 1975, Chng decided to embrace a formal art education.

She studied art first at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), then at the St. Martin’s School of Art in London. When she received a Lee Foundation Study Award immediately after, she enrolled in the Hull College of Higher Education where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) in Fine Art. A year later in 1980, she received the first Cultural Foundation Award and embarked on another series of further studies in art, with postgraduate studies at the Hornsey College of Art at the Middlesex Polytechnic in the UK. She then studied Intaglio and Engraving at Atelier 17 in Paris, and moved onto New Mexico State University and the University of Iowa, obtaining two master's degrees majoring in printmaking.

Upon graduation from University of Iowa in 1985, Chng worked in Hong Kong for half a year as an art editor, then returned to Singapore to teach printmaking at NAFA, LASALLE College of the Arts and later at National Institute of Education, a role she enjoyed until her retirement from teaching in 1997.

All this while, she delved into art-making, going beyond printmaking to explore drawing, painting, collage, mixed media, textiles, photography, ceramic, sculpture in various materials including clay, wood and bronze, and installation. She created many works sparked by the boundless inspiration she found in the natural world. Her earlier works in particular reveal a deep and abiding love for nature, her early prints featuring the picturesque landscapes of Hull where she was a student in the ’70s. She also increasingly found sources of inspiration in the human condition. As her art-making progressed, her artworks began to express her strong concerns with human, social and environmental issues, revealing a dichotomy between the idyllic fragility of nature and the tensions and drama of human nature.

In 1988 after tragically losing most of her eyesight after a surgical operation to remove a brain abscess, Chng plunged into a state of despair. A year later, she emerged from it with a new sense of self, a new approach to art, and a solo exhibition of a staggering 175 works that showed an instinctive feel for colour unimpeded by imperfect sight. Her works, post 1988, also focused more on sculpture and mixed media, sometimes using unexpected natural materials such as dried lily buds or kim chiam (“golden needles” in Hokkien), a traditional Chinese food item, made into tiny human figurines in Wonders of Golden Needles in 2007.

A less known fact about Chng is that she is also an established Chinese writer. An avid reader, she began writing recreationally early in life as a student, and over the decades, while practicing art, has remained committed to her love of the written word. In 1977, she won the second prize in the WorldWide Chinese Essay Competition organised by the Wide Angle Press, Hong Kong, and has since published 13 collections of short stories, social commentaries, travel writings, essays on art and other prose. For her literary contributions, she received the Singapore Chinese Literary Award by the Singapore Literature Society in 2007.

From her first solo exhibition in 1977, Chng has since held over 26 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 100 group exhibitions in Singapore and overseas. Today, Chng is the President of the Printmaking Society (Singapore), and many of her works may be found in private and public collections around the world.

For her courage and contribution to the arts, she was named the Woman of the Year 2001 by Her World magazine, and she received the Cultural Medallion in 2005.

On 6 Sep 2019, Chng Seok Tin passed away in Singapore at the age of 73.