Like many second-generation Singapore artists, Ang Ah Tee produced a large body of works, featuring local sceneries and surroundings such as the Singapore river and Chinatown. He has eventually managed to stand out from his contemporaries, as his unique painterly language which goes beyond naturalistic representation enables the viewer to visualise the emotional engagements of the artist with the painted scenes. This work was produced during his early endeavour in search of views and scenes from the daily life and local context and to transform them into pictorial images. The artist had been conscious of developing stylistic rhetoric – through the control of tonalities, the textures of pigments and the effect of brushstrokes – in order to characterise the sites, space and time which were he perceived with high familiarity and emotional attachments. This alley is located near the Indian Temple at Temple Street. It was an old alley where many hawkers peddled their goods. It was full of life, activities and possessed a very unique character featured by its noise, chaos and crowds. Ang Ah Tee’s watercolour painting is characterised by the subtle tonality and slightly misty visual effect. This helps to create a distinctive aura that evokes the sentiments of isolation and nostalgia, controlling the pictorial imagery.
