Lai Foong Moi: Crossings

Paris salons, three decades teaching at NAFA, and then a 60-year wait for a second look.

Crossings is for anyone who likes Singapore history told through ordinary lives, and with a run to October 2027 it is the rare show you can save for the right afternoon. Lai Foong Moi was the first Malayan-born woman to hold solo exhibitions in Singapore and the Federation of Malaya; then the attention drifted, and the Gallery now counts her among its 'underexplored' Nanyang artists. This, the second edition of the Dalam Singapore series, open since 14 August, is her first solo presentation since the 1960s. The compromise is scale: the paintings are quiet and the people in them are mostly resting, so it suits a slow hour rather than a big day out.

The biography explains the confidence. Born in Malaya in 1931, Lai graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 1954, then went to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on a French Government scholarship and showed at the Paris salons. She came back in 1958 and taught at NAFA for more than three decades.

The work is the opposite of grand, and the titles tell you why: Trishaw Rider (1961), Labourer (Lunch Break) (1965), street scenes looking along Victoria Street. Her workers are caught mid-pause rather than mid-toil (the lunch break, here as anywhere, is sacred).

The show takes its title from two paintings of 1964 and 1965. Find Crossing (Home Coming) first: two women and a boy in a boat, serene until you notice it is about migration and belonging. Stand with it a while.

It is in DBS Singapore Gallery 3, and general admission applies, free for citizens and PRs. Pair it with Fan Chang Tien in the City Hall Wing and make a Nanyang afternoon of it.

Good to know Dalam Singapore, DBS Singapore Gallery 3, National Gallery Singapore, 1 St Andrew's Road (nearest MRT: City Hall). Until 3 October 2027. Open daily 10am–7pm; general admission applies, free for citizens and PRs.

Lai Foong Moi: Crossings | National Gallery Singapore, 1 St Andrew's Road, Singapore 178957 | Nearest MRT: City Hall