Written by: Qurratul Ain Sanjida

She said she loved the color of an Auburn Sunset. 

She wondered how colors mixed together to express emotions. 

She believed that a blank canvas that reveals her inner identity was better than a secure job that didn’t show her the true meaning of satisfaction.

Samantha Marie Chan, 41, is a full-time Singaporean artist and freelancer. I had the pleasure of meeting her at her home. It was a lively apartment in the busy Singapore city; paintings on the walls adorned with vivid colors and brushstrokes. The paintings spoke for themselves; even before I spoke to Samantha, her artwork revealed a lot about her.

Her artistic journey is an interesting one that began in 2005. In July 2006, she took her first art lesson with NAFA Oil Painting Course and then continued art under the supervision of Artist Mr. Low Kim Chit. Afterwards as her marketing responsibilities grew, she began to have less time available for her artistic pursuits, eventually leading her to stop after nearly two years. And then 10 years passed.

It was around 2017 that she reconsidered art again and for the first time ever started to take painting seriously as more than just a hobby. In 2018, some watercolor courses and painting with My Art Space resumed her artistic pursuit. During the pandemic, she embarked on freelance work and continued painting in her homely setting. Fast forward to 2023, she’s done pieces for friends, small commissions, and fun artwork for herself. She has participated in 2-3 exhibitions to showcase her paintings.

Her primary mode is Acrylic and she has loved switching and experimenting between brushes and palette knives. When I asked who inspired her as an artist, she mentioned J.M.W. Turner and his work “The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken Up”. In 2005, she witnessed his work in the National Gallery in London. Spellbound, she immediately fell in love with textures and how it makes paintings alive. In 2012, Samantha came across Scottish Artist Ronnie Ford in the Ode to Art Gallery, where a massive art piece captivated her. It was a painting of a huge lavender field with thick impasto (texture), and she wanted to touch the artwork!  Setting texture thus became one of the key characteristics of her paintings. Along the way, she experimented with acrylic, oil, and watercolors but says that watercolor is still a dream of hers as the medium is very challenging to master.

   

When I asked Auburnskye how she envisions the impact of her art on her viewers, she said art to her is the pleasure of it. It’s the beauty that brings a smile to people’s faces and gives them a little inspiration for enjoying life. She said, “Art can be anything -- to me it is beauty, but to someone else it is cathartic; it is a way to communicate a message, perhaps even a dark message. Or, a way to express or let go of negative feelings. My artworks, as I see them, are beautiful and inspirational, I envision them to send my joy and love to others. The story of hope and the meaning behind each picture may also inspire others to be happy or give them strength to get through a tough day.”

Nevertheless, it wasn’t always easy for her. Talking about the challenges she has faced as an emerging artist, she mentioned, “I could never have come this far if I did not attend the workshop by AsiaWorks in 2017. By then, I had buried my art for 10 years and had not even thought of the possibility of coming back. Work was always my first priority until I had a breakthrough and AHA moment.”

It started with a passion but she needed support. So, she joined the art studio to paint in a community with guidance from a teacher and art friends surrounding her as she wasn’t comfortable working at home. As she left her job to pursue art, many suggested making it a business, painting things that can be sold, like scenes of Singapore, or making merchandise out of them. Some said she could teach. But she could never agree to the idea of art being a business. About this, she said, “I discovered that my concept of art is very personal. I’m not doing it for business, or for a job. I am not using it to express darker feelings or to communicate a message. I just want to paint the things I find beautiful. So the biggest challenge was to discover what kind of artist I am.” For other emerging artists out there she said, “Listen to yourself...Don’t stop painting because the answers aren’t found in a day.”

This year she is participating in the #MeetArts’ Art Carnival Art In Action (AIA) to motivate herself and make sure she is not stagnating. It’s her inspiration to keep going forward even on down days. Participating in the carnival gives her that sense of belonging, and no matter what there’s a place for her to be seen and heard.”

A sneak peek into Auburnskye’s works at the AIA:

1) My Camino Cat - was a real cat that was napping in a small hut. While walking the French (Le Puy) Camino (a popular pilgrimage made of various trekking

routes leading to Spain’s Compostela de Santiago church) and taking a break, we saw this cute orange cat. In the painting, there is a pen and a notebook... actually, on the scribbles is an autograph from me, saying “Hello from Singapore” If you look closely, I had marked the year I was there “2018”.

   

2) Cinque Terre - was painted during the Covid time when travel was not possible. I could only reminisce about my trips. The crowd of Cinque Terre was then quite the opposite. I was painting this in brush at first, but in the end, I decided to change the whole thing into a palette knife effect.

Cinque Terre by Auburnskye.

3)  Autumn Light - This artwork captures a serene moment on Miyajima Island in Japan, following a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

At the exhibition, Samantha hopes that her art will inspire viewers and grow their interest to take art as more than a hobby. She shared, “When I was doing art with Kim Chit I recall him once saying, ‘You can do art’. And when I was art jamming, a teacher asked, ‘Have you ever thought of doing art seriously?’ Hearing affirmations like these gave me inner confidence that I do have what it takes to be an artist. The rest is Hard Work!”

Art can be a means of expressing our thoughts, feelings, and also culture, and heritage. Samantha paints to tell her real-life stories, travels, historical adventures, and sometimes the beautiful nature out there. She believes when a scene is immortalized in an art piece, it retells the story over and over again as it continues to live on forever. As she chose to draw the beauty of nature, she gets a chance to share the stories of all the bright places she has seen. 

Join us to explore Auburnskye’s pieces at the #MeetArts Art In Action carnival from 17 to 25th June 23 at the Tzu Chi Humanistic Youth Centre!  Admission is free.

"Art is a lifelong journey of self-discovery and expression, and mine is about immortalizing the meaningful moments."

by Artist Samantha Marie Chan/ Auburnskye