Amidst the bustle of last year’s Singapore Art Week, I made my way uphill, in search of 11 Upper Wilkie Road and a promised open studio exhibition. At last, I found myself at Art On The Hill 25, an exciting weeklong gathering of local artists sharing their works across diverse mediums. 

Just a stone’s throw away from Dhoby Ghaut, here was a hidden enclave of artist studios, whose occupants came together to host the Art On The Hill open studio show every year. The atmosphere felt totally different from the frenetic city area: vines crawled up the sides of repurposed shipping containers, trees lent their shade, and light filtered gently through stained glass windows. Life seemed to slow its pace here to something more gentle and calm. 

Both the 2025 and 2026 editions of Art On The Hill included Tan Sock Fong (glass artist), Adi Yadoni (filmmaker and visual artist), Ahmad Abu Bakar (ceramicist and photographer), Juliet Wee (painter), Sunar Sugiyou (Chinese ink painter), Ridhuan Jailer (sculptor and muralist), and Jolin Nai (glass and jewellery artist). 

In particular, I was there to speak with Tan, who also founded the Singapore Art Glass Centre, a studio-cum-gallery which operates year-round. Home to a fully functional glass workshop, the Art Glass Centre hosts a collective of several artists working in different areas of glass art, such as lampwork, engraving, mosaic, and stained glass. It also runs public programmes and has a residency studio for artists to develop new work.

I sat down with Tan to learn more about Art On The Hill and her own practice.

Coming together

Art On The Hill emerged from the vision of creating a casual space where artists could share their works, inspirations, and processes with anyone who visited, on a deeper level than the usual formal museum setting. As Tan described, the works were not just canvases on a white wall, but breathing vessels. The visitor could enjoy a more immersive experience and heightened understanding of the artwork on display. She envisioned a space that could bridge generations of artists and create a community centred on art appreciation, conversation, and collaboration.

During the week, the artists were also guiding hands-on workshops, allowing visitors to try art jamming, bead-making, and more. By attending Art On The Hill, I realised, I could step beyond the boundary separating artist from viewer and tour their real-life workspaces, conversations unfolding naturally amidst the tools and paint-streaked tables. 

Tan Sock Fong’s story

When I asked what first drew her towards glass as a medium, Tan raised a stained glass ornament towards the light. As sunlight passed through the ornament, coloured shadows danced across the table. Such a play of light was only achievable with the transparent quality of glass. She also mentioned the feelings of warmth, comfort, and assurance that came through in some of her works.

As we chatted, Song Fong shared that she began using glass back in the late 1980s. When she started working after graduating from LASALLE with a diploma in printmaking, she picked up different treatment methods used for commercial glass, such as sand-blasting and stained glass. This deepened her interest, spurring her to pursue further glass art education at the University of Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom, where she was further exposed to different glass techniques before graduating in 1995. She also took part in organising Singapore’s first glass exhibition, Glass: Passage of Evaluation, in 1993. 

Tan came back to Singapore with the ambition of starting a larger local glass art movement. As the medium was very uncommon, she began teaching, which formed the foundation of her practice and remains an important part of her life today. 

In her art, Tan occasionally works with other materials like wood and metal. These materials are typically just used as podiums for glass pieces, but she goes beyond these conventions in works like Aequilibrium IX (2017), which combines stone and glass, stability and fragility in an interesting composition of contrasting transparencies, colours, and textures. 

Glass art for all

Tan shared with me her vision of working freely in a collaborative space, where she and other artists working in specialised mediums can come together to make art that challenges what has been done before. 

But besides these artist-to-artist interactions, the Art Glass Centre also hosts workshops aimed at making the appreciation and creation of glass art accessible to all. Tan noted that the typical glass art workshop is packaged as an express experience with fixed methods and outcomes. She, on the other hand, hopes to introduce her knowledge, experiences, and techniques at a slower pace of learning, allowing her students to build strong technical foundations while also providing space for experimentation — discovering new ways to manipulate the same material and fully make use of the medium’s versatility. The centre should be a comfortable space for students to return again and again, dedicated to artmaking and blooming creativity. While these efforts were hindered during the COVID-19 pandemic, when art was deemed “non-essential,” she has since been trying to pick up the pieces. 

Beyond the annual Art On The Hill open studio exhibition, Sock Fong hopes to host more such events and sharings. For those who would like to collaborate or come by the centre for a visit, she can be reached via email (tansf@artglasscentre.com) or Instagram (@artglasscentre/@tansockfong).

As the centre’s website describes, “With a strong focus on education, experiment, and creation, [the Art Glass Centre] is for the novice, the artist, and the passer-by. This facility is a hotbed of ideas where possibilities and collaborations are encouraged.” Within this space, artmaking persists through time, not drowned out by the city noise, continuing in steadfast quiet.

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Find out more about the Art Glass Centre at artglasscentre.com and about Art On The Hill at artonthehillstudio.weebly.com, and follow @artglasscentre on Instagram for the latest updates. 

Read our 2021 piece on glass art in Singapore here.