The artist behind the samsui woman mural on life before, during and after the controversy

Multidisciplinary artist Sean Dunston might now be best known for the mural of a smoking samsui woman at 297 South Bridge Road in Chinatown – the subject of public debate over the past month. It does come up often in conversation with new people he meets, he admitted.  

But the 50-year-old had already been making his mark around Singapore with his distinct style of portraiture years ago.

Dunston, an American based in Singapore since 2009, is responsible for the two-storey mural of the Starbucks siren within Starbucks Reserve in Jewel Changi. 

He also has two murals – each of a single, striking Asian woman – that adorn co-living company Coliwoo’s service apartment buildings along River Valley Road. 

And in Bugis, the facade of co-living hotel ST Signature Bugis Middle is home to his seven-storey mural of a female Hainanese opera singer pouring a traditional cup of kopi. The vivid mural is Dunston’s biggest commission to date, and took him almost a year to complete. 

At the back of the same building is a soaring phoenix, painted in equally vibrant colours and bold brushstrokes.

But the infamous mural that thrust him into the spotlight in June is a young samsui woman sitting on a chair with a cigarette in hand. She appears to be at rest – both physically and in the energy she exudes. Her gaze, steady and direct, is the embodiment of a self-possessed woman. 

“IT’S ABOUT THE EMOTIONAL CONNECTION” 

Dunston loved art since he was a kid. He started college-level art lessons at age 12 with a family friend, after he was pulled out of school by his mother for religious reasons. There, he learnt about figure drawing – which would eventually influence his mural style. 

For a long time, however, he “didn’t focus on making art”, he told CNA Lifestyle in an interview, a month since his mural went viral following his Instagram post about the changes authorities initially required him to make to the artwork. 

“It was more about surviving.” 

His background in construction, including casting bespoke concrete fixtures and furniture, brought him to Singapore 15 years ago. And it was only about eight years ago that he started pitching mural ideas to clients in a bid to return to his love for art. 

A good mural, he believes, does “the same thing that art in your house would do”. It enhances the space, making a place feel more real and welcoming “even if it’s not necessarily a welcoming image”. 

When someone looks at a mural, “it’s about the emotional connection, like there being a story or narrative you can take in all at once by looking at an image”, he added. “That’s what I try to do.”

And so, Dunston knew – from the get-go when he was first commissioned to paint the samsui woman mural late last year – that he wanted to portray samsui women unlike their traditionally weather-beaten appearance.

At one glance, Dunston's mural is decidedly different from how the average Singaporean might picture samsui women – a Chinese female migrant worker population who took on industrial jobs during Singapore’s developing years. 

A five-minute walk away at Sago Lane sits another mural of a samsui woman also smoking a cigarette and relaxing. This woman, drawn by Singaporean artist Belinda Low, is seated on the floor, kicking up her legs. And she appears to be of old age, from the facial lines on her otherwise indistinct appearance.

Meanwhile, a glass panel at the Chinatown Visitor Centre features a black-and-white photo reproduction of two samsui women at work. The photo by Singaporean pioneer photographer Yip Cheong Fun shows the women toiling away with shovels. 

While not the only other pieces of art in Chinatown about samsui women, they represent an idea of samsui women that some detractors had in mind when critiquing Dunston’s mural for “disrespect” and "historical inaccuracy".

Others had also pointed out the mural was an advertisement for smoking, he said, noting that people were "certain" about these points of criticism.

Reflecting on the past month, Dunston said it was "interesting" what these vocal critics saw in his mural.

"They think she’s not being honoured because she’s not squatting on the ground, filthy, eating garbage or something. They’re like, oh this is disrespect because you’re not showing them as they were – living a hard life," he added.

"But that’s specifically what I didn’t want to do."

NOT ABOUT WHAT SHE DOES, BUT WHO SHE IS

Dunston first latched on to the idea of painting a samsui woman during discussions with his client, who’d presented several possible options for portraits that would fit in with the surrounding Chinatown heritage area. He had always wanted to paint a samsui woman after he learnt about their role in Singapore’s history, since relocating from the United States. 

But he found that “colonial-era” photos of samsui women – which he initially tried using as reference for his mural – reminded him “of a documentary" and they had “a reality show feel” to them. 

Many photos depicted “faceless” samsui women, and felt “too cold” and “very impersonal”, he explained. 

“I wanted to have more of a salon, artist studio portrait kind of feel, where the subject would be more central and not (focused on) what she’s doing. I didn’t want to see her actively toiling.”

Unlike the faceless samsui women he was used to seeing in old photos, he wanted to create something with "more presence" and “put a face to her”. The eventual depiction of the samsui woman had to be, in Dunston's view, “not so much about what she was doing, but who she was”.

Still, he couldn’t quite pinpoint the source of his discomfort, until he attended an exhibition at Gajah Gallery located in Tanjong Pagar Distripark: Customised Postures, (De)colonising Gestures. 

The exhibition was about “reshaping the colonial lens, the colonial gaze, and about how contemporary artists interpret these old photographs”, he shared. And it “opened my eyes to why the photos felt like this”.

Ironically, Dunston’s critics, including AWARE in their initial statement before they apologised for misinterpreting his work, accused him of this same stance that he’d taken pains to counter. “I know what they’re talking about. (The gaze) does exist. There’s a lot of it and it’s a real thing. But I felt really bad that they thought that was also me,” he recalled. 

“I wasn’t thinking that I wanted to make (the samsui woman) glamorous. Just not filthy, just not roughed up. I’m sure that they were, at certain points, in new uniforms.”

As for the cigarette in the mural, the initial point of contention for authorities, it was essentially the only object that felt right. “At one point, we were like, maybe she could have a chicken. The chicken didn’t work out. At another time, she didn’t have anything in her hands; her other hand was in her lap,” said Dunston. 

“We just liked the image with the cigarette best. It’s just one of those things where you’re looking at it, and my client and I decided together that that was the best option.” 

In fact, in an Instagram post on Jun 28, slightly over a week from his initial viral post, Dunston also articulated his thought process behind his depiction of the samsui woman, pointing to a phrase that had stuck with him throughout the approximately four months he worked on the mural. 

The phrase “bread and roses” was from a speech given by a labour and women’s rights activist, Rose Schneiderman, while she was addressing an audience of middle-class women organising for women’s suffrage in Ohio in the US. 

“You have nothing that the humblest workers have not a right to have also,” she’d said, according to Dunston’s post. “The worker must have bread, but she must have roses too.”

"I'LL JUST CONTINUE TO MAKE ART"

Since the debate around the mural, Dunston has been signed to urban art gallery Dominic Khoo's 28 Février. But he maintains that the public furore following his initial Instagram post was unintended and unexpected.

"I wasn't trying to change anybody's mind. At that point, I was already resigned to changing (the mural)," he said. 

“I thought it’d be (a) much more isolated conversation in the art community, or even smaller than that, like among people who’d painted samsui women before,” he added, but noted that his critics seemed scant. “It’s mostly support – expert support."

He pointed out that other forms of art, like movies and music, also regularly get people talking about societal issues, and that this particular instance was "actually very wholesome". 

"I’m really happy and proud to have been part of something like that, and to continue to be part of something like that," he said. 

With the episode still fresh in people's minds, Dunston knows he can't control whether people always associate him with the samsui woman mural. The artist in him also knows better than to expect or aim to replicate the same level of public discourse and awareness for his future pieces. 

“Nothing that I’ve painted before had this kind of impact – and it’s been good. I imagine it’s going to affect how I paint from now on, and what I paint, how I select things to paint. But I don’t want it to; I don’t want to take things too seriously or try and get a response like this because I think it’s not good for the art,” he said.

“I’ll just continue to make art, and hopefully, if anything, maybe this episode will get people to look closer at the next work I do."