The simplicity and free-spirit shown in Tan Cheng Yan’s work is the result of confidence and courage. Such qualities have become valuable in contrast to the frail and superficial works often by the new generation of artists.

The succicnt yet mature language in her work seems to express a sense of subconsiousness, or to accumulate hidden feelings and memories. Such accumulation may have resulted in distoring or recreating the reality, not escaping from it. The artist is in search of entrance or exit between the state of consiousness and subconsiousness. The uncertainty in this process of search has become her freedom.