Something about letters and lettering speaks to Charmaine Chen more than any other art form.
The core of the 36-year-old artist’s work revolves around painting signs by hand, the old-school way, often involving ornate lettering and gold leaf gilding.
If you’ve been out and about visiting bars, cafes, restaurants and even some tailors and barbershops, you might have seen her work: The Dragon Chamber restaurant, Motherdough bakery, Kurasu, Dickson Nasi Lemak and Dolcetto at Conrad Singapore Orchard are just some of the establishments proudly advertising their businesses to passersby through her signs.
Charmaine Chen's work at The Dragon Chamber. (Photo: Charmaine Chen)
Besides paint, she also specialises in working with gold leaf of all karats and colours in all kinds of finishes, from shiny 12k white gold to matte 23k yellow gold and everything in between – a skill that’s more than a little specialised.
The rich detail on the Dragon Chamber’s door is one of her favourite projects, taking several days to complete; each of the dragon’s golden scales was painted individually.
Some of her biggest and most elaborate signs can be found inside Novena Church, in the lobby as well as the carpark.
(Photo: Charmaine Chen)
During the course of painting these, "I had people bringing me fruit and food, and random people coming up to me and thanking me and praying for my hands”, she recalled. “It was their place of worship and and I was painting it, so I was actually a little bit nervous as to how people would respond to it.
“But, I'm extremely happy with the kind of response that I get, be it from the church or my clients, in their homes, their restaurants. It's been wonderful, because it is very intimate – your sign stays with you, hopefully, the whole time.”
It is precisely this “human element” of a hand painted sign that continually captivates her, Chen said.
Charmaine Chen at work. (Photo: CNA/Jiakee Mak)
“When you run your hands along a plastic sign, you don't get the same sensation as running your hands along an old, hand painted sign. It's got character, it's got soul. It ages quite beautifully,” she said.
A vinyl sign might be cheaper, which is why you’ll find them everywhere; but far less durable or sustainable in the long run as they tend to bubble and peel at the edges, she explained. “If you want something that you know really lasts, I believe in getting it done by hand.” And, “You get the same result from every single printer you go to.” But, with a painted sign, “you’re the only one who has it”.
At work. (Photo: Charmaine Chen)
Chen first encountered sign painting during her university days in Sydney, where she studied industrial design and went on to live for eight years.
“I noticed that along the streets, in many of the neighbourhoods, the old signs were being retained. There was a bit of a revival going on where they realised they were quickly disappearing and that these skills needed to be passed on and shared,” she said.
“Then, I started to realise, ‘There's a human behind all these signs. There's a trade behind them, one that's still very much practiced’.”
She found a sign-painting class to sign up for, and, along with it, a community.
The very first sign she painted read: “Let sleeping dogs lie”.
“I was so curious and I had this fire in my belly,” she recalled. “I just started asking people if they would trust me to paint their sign. I started with the coffee shop downstairs of my house, and they put it up. After that, I got more confident. I painted more signs, asked more people, painted more signs and learnt more things, all while keeping a full-time job.”
At her day job, “I did a little bit of scenic painting, and I did a lot of montage painting, which is the customisation of luxury bags”, she said. “Eventually, I realised it felt like my full-time job was holding me back from getting into sign painting completely. My passion was overriding it very clearly.”
Still, “For a long time, I was unsure. I wasn't too confident about how a sign painter was going to survive in Singapore,” she said.
In the studio. (Photo: CNA/Jiakee Mak)
Fellow sign painters around the world, whom she’d met online or at conferences, encouraged her to take the leap. And, her parents were “extremely supportive”.
Those who told her not to quit her job “eventually got behind me when I showed them, 'I can do this. I want to do this.’ And, I personally think I thrive better in an environment like this than in an office”.
She explained: ”It's the lettering. It's the process. It’s the practice. I don't know why, as well. But, I've never really gotten myself immersed into anything like this, and it feels right. So, I’d like to keep at it until I can't anymore."
One of Charmaine Chen's signs. (Photo: Charmaine Chen)
What goes into painting a sign that emulates the look of vintage ones?
“I start my process with a lot of observation and research. I like to go into archives from the early 1900s and get my brain going, juices flowing, and all sorts of inspiration. It could be from anything, like an old tin that I saved up. Then, I start drawing things out, seeing how they look. And then I create a pounce pattern, which is basically the design. I perforate the entire thing, and then pounce chalk or charcoal through it so that the pattern gets transferred onto the wall (or surface). And then, I paint.”
It’s a process that requires “complete precision and patience”, and can take many days to complete.
At work. (Photo: CNA/Jiakee Mak)
Working with gold leaf is especially challenging because “when you make a mistake, you can’t go back and fix it. You have to start again. If you want your job to be seamless, many moving parts have to come together at once”.
Plus, “Gold leaf is an extremely delicate material, so if I so much as breathe, it will fly and just disappear. It’s really, really thin. And, It's probably about S$3 a sheet, at least. So, if you learn to handle it properly, and you get good at it, you're actually saving yourself money.”
On top of that, there are other techniques, such as mastery of tools, perfecting layouts and making surfaces look naturally aged.
Producing a flawless piece of work “used to be something I would strive for, but it's the beauty and imperfection that I realised I value a lot more than perfection itself,” she said. “If you think you're the best, you're not open to learning anymore, and your journey stops there.”
Some of Charmaine Chen's work. (Photo: Charmaine Chen)
For inspiration, she makes “pilgrimages” to countries like the UK and Japan.
But, signs aren’t all she paints. In September last year, she spent five weeks painting a mural on a carefully aged wall as part of an event organised by arts organisation Art Outreach. And, last month, together with other local artists, she worked on an even larger mural spanning the facade of the six-storey Tampines North Community Club, quite literally scaling greater heights than ever before.
Once she’s finished a work, though, “I have this feeling that I can't look at it any more”, she laughed. It’s because “I spent so many hours so immersed and almost stuck to this wall”. But, “After I shrug that off, it feels great, actually. It feels great to be able to put work out and have people understand that this is something done by hand, not by machine”.
Chen’s philosophy is that “old is gold”.
In her studio. (Photo: CNA/Jiakee Mak)
“I can spend a really, really long time in a thrift store or antique store, just looking at all the little details of things. The amount of detail you get is just kind of lost in things nowadays,” she said. “Everything is being streamlined, and we're going less ornate, when actually, we could be going the other way, because we can.”
For her, “Antiques are never going to go out of style. Nostalgia is never going to go out of style. Everybody is going to want to go back and remember a time that used to be”.
Anachronistic things “remind you of a time when things were slower, when people took time to make things, when craftsmanship was valued – not just fast, cheap and contemporary, but quite the opposite. I think that's what draws people in. That is what draws me in.”
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The core of the 36-year-old artist’s work revolves around painting signs by hand, the old-school way, often involving ornate lettering and gold leaf gilding.
If you’ve been out and about visiting bars, cafes, restaurants and even some tailors and barbershops, you might have seen her work: The Dragon Chamber restaurant, Motherdough bakery, Kurasu, Dickson Nasi Lemak and Dolcetto at Conrad Singapore Orchard are just some of the establishments proudly advertising their businesses to passersby through her signs.
Charmaine Chen's work at The Dragon Chamber. (Photo: Charmaine Chen)
Besides paint, she also specialises in working with gold leaf of all karats and colours in all kinds of finishes, from shiny 12k white gold to matte 23k yellow gold and everything in between – a skill that’s more than a little specialised.
The rich detail on the Dragon Chamber’s door is one of her favourite projects, taking several days to complete; each of the dragon’s golden scales was painted individually.
Some of her biggest and most elaborate signs can be found inside Novena Church, in the lobby as well as the carpark.
(Photo: Charmaine Chen)
During the course of painting these, "I had people bringing me fruit and food, and random people coming up to me and thanking me and praying for my hands”, she recalled. “It was their place of worship and and I was painting it, so I was actually a little bit nervous as to how people would respond to it.
“But, I'm extremely happy with the kind of response that I get, be it from the church or my clients, in their homes, their restaurants. It's been wonderful, because it is very intimate – your sign stays with you, hopefully, the whole time.”
It is precisely this “human element” of a hand painted sign that continually captivates her, Chen said.
Charmaine Chen at work. (Photo: CNA/Jiakee Mak)
“When you run your hands along a plastic sign, you don't get the same sensation as running your hands along an old, hand painted sign. It's got character, it's got soul. It ages quite beautifully,” she said.
A vinyl sign might be cheaper, which is why you’ll find them everywhere; but far less durable or sustainable in the long run as they tend to bubble and peel at the edges, she explained. “If you want something that you know really lasts, I believe in getting it done by hand.” And, “You get the same result from every single printer you go to.” But, with a painted sign, “you’re the only one who has it”.
FOLLOWING THE SIGNS
At work. (Photo: Charmaine Chen)
Chen first encountered sign painting during her university days in Sydney, where she studied industrial design and went on to live for eight years.
“I noticed that along the streets, in many of the neighbourhoods, the old signs were being retained. There was a bit of a revival going on where they realised they were quickly disappearing and that these skills needed to be passed on and shared,” she said.
“Then, I started to realise, ‘There's a human behind all these signs. There's a trade behind them, one that's still very much practiced’.”
She found a sign-painting class to sign up for, and, along with it, a community.
The very first sign she painted read: “Let sleeping dogs lie”.
“I was so curious and I had this fire in my belly,” she recalled. “I just started asking people if they would trust me to paint their sign. I started with the coffee shop downstairs of my house, and they put it up. After that, I got more confident. I painted more signs, asked more people, painted more signs and learnt more things, all while keeping a full-time job.”
At her day job, “I did a little bit of scenic painting, and I did a lot of montage painting, which is the customisation of luxury bags”, she said. “Eventually, I realised it felt like my full-time job was holding me back from getting into sign painting completely. My passion was overriding it very clearly.”
Still, “For a long time, I was unsure. I wasn't too confident about how a sign painter was going to survive in Singapore,” she said.
In the studio. (Photo: CNA/Jiakee Mak)
Fellow sign painters around the world, whom she’d met online or at conferences, encouraged her to take the leap. And, her parents were “extremely supportive”.
Those who told her not to quit her job “eventually got behind me when I showed them, 'I can do this. I want to do this.’ And, I personally think I thrive better in an environment like this than in an office”.
She explained: ”It's the lettering. It's the process. It’s the practice. I don't know why, as well. But, I've never really gotten myself immersed into anything like this, and it feels right. So, I’d like to keep at it until I can't anymore."
A TIME-HONOURED CRAFT
One of Charmaine Chen's signs. (Photo: Charmaine Chen)
What goes into painting a sign that emulates the look of vintage ones?
“I start my process with a lot of observation and research. I like to go into archives from the early 1900s and get my brain going, juices flowing, and all sorts of inspiration. It could be from anything, like an old tin that I saved up. Then, I start drawing things out, seeing how they look. And then I create a pounce pattern, which is basically the design. I perforate the entire thing, and then pounce chalk or charcoal through it so that the pattern gets transferred onto the wall (or surface). And then, I paint.”
It’s a process that requires “complete precision and patience”, and can take many days to complete.
At work. (Photo: CNA/Jiakee Mak)
Working with gold leaf is especially challenging because “when you make a mistake, you can’t go back and fix it. You have to start again. If you want your job to be seamless, many moving parts have to come together at once”.
Plus, “Gold leaf is an extremely delicate material, so if I so much as breathe, it will fly and just disappear. It’s really, really thin. And, It's probably about S$3 a sheet, at least. So, if you learn to handle it properly, and you get good at it, you're actually saving yourself money.”
On top of that, there are other techniques, such as mastery of tools, perfecting layouts and making surfaces look naturally aged.
Producing a flawless piece of work “used to be something I would strive for, but it's the beauty and imperfection that I realised I value a lot more than perfection itself,” she said. “If you think you're the best, you're not open to learning anymore, and your journey stops there.”
Some of Charmaine Chen's work. (Photo: Charmaine Chen)
For inspiration, she makes “pilgrimages” to countries like the UK and Japan.
But, signs aren’t all she paints. In September last year, she spent five weeks painting a mural on a carefully aged wall as part of an event organised by arts organisation Art Outreach. And, last month, together with other local artists, she worked on an even larger mural spanning the facade of the six-storey Tampines North Community Club, quite literally scaling greater heights than ever before.
NOSTALGIA NEVER GOES OUT OF STYLE
Once she’s finished a work, though, “I have this feeling that I can't look at it any more”, she laughed. It’s because “I spent so many hours so immersed and almost stuck to this wall”. But, “After I shrug that off, it feels great, actually. It feels great to be able to put work out and have people understand that this is something done by hand, not by machine”.
Chen’s philosophy is that “old is gold”.
In her studio. (Photo: CNA/Jiakee Mak)
“I can spend a really, really long time in a thrift store or antique store, just looking at all the little details of things. The amount of detail you get is just kind of lost in things nowadays,” she said. “Everything is being streamlined, and we're going less ornate, when actually, we could be going the other way, because we can.”
For her, “Antiques are never going to go out of style. Nostalgia is never going to go out of style. Everybody is going to want to go back and remember a time that used to be”.
Anachronistic things “remind you of a time when things were slower, when people took time to make things, when craftsmanship was valued – not just fast, cheap and contemporary, but quite the opposite. I think that's what draws people in. That is what draws me in.”
Continue reading...