September 02, 2018, 04:32 PM 
She plugs in her headphones. With electronic dance music blaring into her ears, she is ready to begin work.
Armed with brushes she personally handpicked from Japan, she mixes the acrylic paints to get the colours she needs, and carefully adds strokes to a branded bag entrusted to her by a client.
These bags are often highly treasured items, sometimes with deep sentimental value. And so, there is no room for mistake; every stroke is precise down to the millimetre.
This backbreaking task takes up at least six hours every day, but 31-year-old Cherin Sim is determined to be the best marquage artist in Singapore.
First S'porean marquage artist
Most people would not have even heard of the term "marquage". It is French for "making a mark", and refers to making distinguishing marks on trunks and bags.
For Cherin Sim, she paints customised artworks on branded bags and leather goods, and to her knowledge, she is the first person to do this in Singapore.
Sim says she has been painting on leather goods since 2015. These include, but are not limited to, branded goods:
“You can bring anything you want; as long as it’s something that you treasure... it’s dear to you. When my clients come to me, not all of them have branded goods. It’s an heirloom… (that) has sentimental value.”
And quality work does not come cheap.
Although the the amount Sim charges for her work varies depending on a myriad of factors such as size and complexity, her art works cost anywhere from S$800 (her base price) to several thousand dollars. The most expensive piece she has painted thus far was priced at S$10,000.
Given the uniqueness of her craft, she and her work have been featured in the media and exhibitions here and overseas.
But how in the world does one end up doing something so specialised? We knew the best way to find out was to dive deep into understanding the person she is.
Passion for art since young
Certainly, it's not often one can pursue their passions full-time, and so one of the first things Sim shares is how blessed she feels to be able to make a living from her love and aptitude for painting.
Indeed, art has always been a part of her life – she lights up as she talks about taking art as an A-level subject and being interested in arts and crafts from as early as in primary school, acing every opportunity she had to take art, even when it was deemed a "less important" subject.
She also recalls going to Yamaha at Parkway for art classes, and learning origami at the library when she was about 12:
“I remember there was once we went to Marine Parade library. There was this person folding grasshoppers using plant leaves... I watched him fold it, and I went home and did the same thing. My mum told me, 'You made a lot (of origami grasshoppers)!!"
And it wasn't your regular lily or crane — she plucked leaves to fold grasshoppers that she says looked exactly like this, purely from observation and memory:
Example of origami grasshopper, photo by jasonr99, via Imgur.
It was only in junior college, however, when she had the chance to attempt her very first painting. Referencing a cover of TIME magazine, she completed an impression of "Passion of the Christ" using charcoal over three hours:
https://www.instagram.com/p/wk6jrUxwax/
“I was very very happy, I never knew I could paint something like this.”
Convinced that this was her life's calling, she went on to pursue further studies in art at Lasalle, and then did her Master's in painting at Goldsmiths (University of London) after that.
She paid her own way through her Master's programme, too, by designing bags for various Singaporean companies.
Working with bags and leather, and a client who took a leap of faith
But why paint on bags?
Sim explains that she got a scholarship to go to Italy to learn leatherworking when she was at Goldsmiths. That experience exposed her to working with leather, and formed the foundation of her skills.
After she graduated, she started her own line of bespoke leather goods, and also customised them by painting on them. Shortly after, however, she transitioned to focus solely on painting in 2015.
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Initially, Sim said customers wanted her to just reproduce specific designs they gave her.
However, a turning point came when one customer trusted her enough to give her full creative freedom. This customer gave her a theme, Astro Boy, and told her to “Give me something from you.”
This was what resulted:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRiY2VFAh1W/
Since then, Sim has grown as an artist and specially comes up with customised designs for every client.
So dedicated she is to this mission that she makes sure she never paints the same design twice.
For instance, here are Snoopy designs done for two different clients who requested the same theme:
Driven by perfectionism
Driven by a work ethic that demands perfection, you can see the steely determination in her eyes as she describes the lengths she goes to just to present her clients with a quality piece of work.
Every day, she commits herself to at least six hours of backbreaking painting, of which she holds herself to the highest standards.
She makes herself sit through hours of continuous painting to complete one colour at a time because she knows that if she stops and starts with a separate mix of paint and at a different session, there will be observable differences in colour, thickness, and style of her brushstrokes:
“Maybe my clients they don’t know, but I definitely know. I see it and I feel uneasy.”
Tools of the trade
With her keen eye for detail, she is particularly picky about the paints and brushes she uses.
The paints she uses are imported from the U.S., while she personally flies to Japan to pick every single individual brush she uses by hand.
Sim insists on doing this, despite getting through brushes really quickly with each job she takes on, because if she has them delivered to Singapore, the shipping process may affect the quality of the bristles, and in turn, the quality of her work:
"Even if I have to change them often I won’t skimp on cheaper brushes. I will buy good quality brushes because it makes my work so much better."
“I never make a mistake”
Sim repeatedly highlights that the work "has to be perfect before [she lets] it go (back to the client)”:
“I never make a mistake. I cannot. I will try to be very very careful about it.
Everything I do, I do with my heart ... If I wanna be the best I have to do things to my best.”
What this also means is that she has no qualms losing sleep in order to create a piece that is up to her standard.
The longest she has spent on a piece of work was when she did this seemingly-simple painting of a car:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQFz5nkjfcU/
It took her 27 hours of solid, almost non-stop painting. The only times she left the room were to use the bathroom, or to get snacks and water.
"I remember I was so, so tired," she tells us. But to her, it is far more important to finish something that is, to her, up to standard.
Deep relationship with clients
In line with this drive for perfection, it’s quite unsurprising for us to learn that the work Sim does goes far beyond just painting — if we can even refer to it as “just painting”.
The way she sees it, what she does isn’t just a service but an entire “experience”.
To better understand her clients' preferences, Sim goes the extra mile to build a close relationship with them.
Many of her clients have since become her friends, and some even ask for her advice when buying gifts for their loved ones.
All of them also trust Sim pretty much entirely with the creative process — they do not see the design she comes up with at any point at all until the bag returns to them:
"The surprise element elevates the entire experience of doing a marquage work with m ... That increases my stress level because I always need to make sure the surprise is positive."
Once painted for someone battling cancer
Even though she has already painted more than 200 bags to date, Sim says she remembers every piece she has ever done, because it always has an interesting story behind it.
Recalling one particularly close to her heart, she shares that an overseas client had once asked Sim to paint a bag she had bought for her cancer-stricken mother.
To Sim, this design was a particularly meaningful one. It was themed "hope" as the daughter hoped it would give her mother a sense of hope when she sees the bag.
And this is the design that resulted, with murakami flowers, Dorami and Doraemon:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BmHwUocnAHC/
Had low self-esteem when young
Sim came to our meeting stylishly dressed in a black jacket thrown over a Kenzo blouse, a bright peach skirt, and olive Comme des Garcons sneakers.
And although shy and soft-spoken, she also spoke with an air of quiet confidence, especially touching on topics she felt deeply for.
Beneath her unique sense of style, as well as her confidence in boldly pursuing her passions, however, is a childhood of struggle with image issues and low self-esteem in her younger days:
“I remember this quite clearly. I think I was in Primary 6. There was one day when I looked into the mirror and I felt like, ‘This is terrible!’ I felt very ugly, fat and miserable. It was a time of frustration.”
Sim says she had very few friends in primary and secondary school, and describes herself as a perpetual misfit. One of the things that affected her most was the experience of being sidelined by other girls:
“Perhaps when I was younger, I wasn’t very eloquent and I was more quiet. I found it very difficult to connect... Maybe it was an esteem or confidence issue. Maybe people just preferred to make friends with the prettier girls.”
But even though she did not "fit in" at that time, she says that may have been a blessing in disguise:
“Maybe I think differently? But that’s why I'm doing what I'm doing now!”
Coming to terms with imperfection
“We are what we are today because of what we’ve been through in the past," Sim says.
And certainly, she acknowledges that it could precisely be her childhood experiences of inadequacy that have built her almost-obsessive pursuit for perfection:
“I’m always looking for perfection. I don’t want someone to have room to criticise my work (and say) it’s not perfect. It’s just something from childhood... That kind of stayed with me and made me into a perfectionist even until now."
However, Sim also tells us that these experiences made her a stronger person. Better still, and perhaps paradoxically, she has also found a way to come to terms with imperfections in her work.
One way she demonstrates this is in the “imperfect symmetry” of her paintings — the overall piece appears symmetrical, but look closely and you’ll notice small, but meaningful differences in details.
Here are some examples:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfh784eAXqn/
Recalling an occasion when she spotted an error in an earlier piece of work, Sim shared that it was experiences like that that showed her there can be beauty in imperfections.
The bag she was working on had already been returned to her client, who did not notice the mistake, but she decided to let him know about it anyway.
Interestingly, though, after some discussion with her client, both of them decided not to correct the painting.
"It’s (still) very unique," she says. "And he loves that it is imperfect."
“I trade my health for the work that I do”
Sim's work in high demand now, with her schedule fully booked until April 2019.
While she is heartened by the stream of clients coming her way without her needing to market her business in any way (apart from on her personal Instagram account), she admits she isn’t sure how much longer she can continue at the pace she does:
“Sometimes when I paint, I don’t sleep much. Maybe a few hours a day.
I try to create ergonomic surfaces but sometimes you have to paint it the best way. Even when I don’t paint, my neck and shoulders are numb (from holding a position for very long). It’s tight, has a lot of knots... I trade my health for the work that I do."
She says she is also trying to scale back a bit on her work so as not to over-strain her neck and shoulder.
That being said, however, no impairment (perhaps save for her eyes and hands) is likely to stop Sim from doing what she truly loves and enjoys:
“I will always be painting. I will never stop painting. But you will never know what happens next time.
I don’t know how long my health can (keep up with this). If I am perfectly fine, of course I will keep doing this. It’s my passion!"
After all, she derives the greatest sense of satisfaction from the look on her clients' face every time she hands the item back to them:
“I love it when I see them and I pass them their item — The look on their face! I feel very happy and satisfied. My loss of sleep is worth it.”
Top photo by Tanya Ong.
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