Oil painting “village” in Dafen, Shenzhen, China
“Replicas” and original paintings, a remarkable gallery with artifacts, and a Google Translated conversation
This past summer, I accompanied my husband on his business trip to Shenzhen, China. While there, I visited the Dafen “oil painting village.” Some background: Shenzhen is not a classic tourist destination. It’s a sprawling metropolis of 13 million people, mega malls, and no less than 451 skyscrapers. The city was founded in 1980, and as a technology hub it’s been called China’s Silicon Valley.
A guidebook described Dafen as a haven for oil painters skilled in copying famous paintings. TripAdvisor advises going there to get your portrait painted or to acquire a rendition of your favorite masterpiece painting.
The village was founded in 1989, and by the early 1990s about 20 art school graduates resided there to make a living producing replicas of paintings by Van Gogh, Dali, DaVinci, Rembrandt, and Warhol. The fledgling art industry grew exponentially when one studio received an order from Walmart for 50,000 paintings. As the story goes, anyone who could hold a paintbrush was recruited to join their painting assembly line.
Fast forward to 2014. The area was home to about 7,000 artists(!) working in painting factories, creating 5 million paintings to export to the US and Europe each year. If you’ve stayed in a hotel, you’ve probably slept under a painting from Dafen. According to Wikipedia, some painters could produce 100 paintings in a 12-hour stretch, which brings new meaning to the phrase used by many artists: creating inventory.
That such a place churning out copies of museum paintings would exist in China did not surprise me, given the prevalence of Tesla and Porsche replicas on the roads, and markets selling clothes with designer names that were slightly misspelled [Clavin Klein, Bilenciago, etc.] to avoid trouble with the authorities.
Though I was not shopping for a counterfeit Rembrandt, I was curious to check out the place. After an hourlong metro ride that cost about $1, I arrived in Dafen, iPhone in hand. Note that my “staff photographer” had to work, so I took the photos shared here.
The “village” is a series of alleys and narrow pedestrian streets lined with hundreds of galleries. The area is bordered by a six-lane highway overpass, fruit vendors with carts piled with durian and watermelons, and hundreds of multistory homes. Many homes were draped with laundry struggling to dry in this day’s 70% humidity.
During an unexpected thundershower—sans umbrella—I ducked into Sunrise Art Center, and was rewarded for it.
The center was founded by Chen Qiuzhi, a contemporary ink artist who also collects architectural artifacts. One of his treasures is a wall he rescued from an ancient home destroyed by a typhoon.
The space also houses abandoned farm implements, stone rollers, timbers used for shipbuilding, weathered tree trunks and branches, and a rather elegant spiral staircase.
Windows and passageways look out to an outdoor tea garden.
I enjoyed perusing some attractive pottery, calligraphy, oil paintings, and watercolor paintings. The gallery featured original art, masterfully produced.
When the rain stopped, I said my goodbyes to the friendly art center people and went in search of the oil painters.
I expected to see at least hundreds of painters and many patrons. But there was a dearth of both on this Tuesday afternoon. Most of the shopkeepers were tapping on their phones or taking cat naps.
I finally spotted some painters working on assorted portraits. They were intensely focused on painting and not interested in chatting. Some of them were “efficiency specialists,” painting over a canvas with the subject’s visage printed on it.
I saw a lot of paintings that belonged on the shelves at HomeGoods rather than on an art association’s wall.
As you might expect, Van Gogh “replicas” were prevalent. I learned that a better quality, 24” x 18” version of Sunflowers cost about $200. Better quality meant more paint was applied to the surface to replicate the texture of the real painting as compared to a lesser piece with less impasto, with a price tag of $80 to $100.
Many galleries were staffed by people who said their husband or father produced the paintings. OK, sure.
The pandemic and ensuing lack of visitors coming to the village was reported to have led to many artists eschewing replicas and focusing on their own work, but I didn’t see much of that. Just when I was about the give up on talking to a painter, I was enthusiastically greeted with a “Hello!” by a friendly painter named Zhao Yang Dong.
Zhao spoke some English and we used Google Translate to assist with our chat. I learned that he began painting at age 7, attended the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in Xi’an, China, and worked as an art teacher at a university and a middle school. He retired five months ago and opened his gallery in Dafen. The gallery was filled with landscapes of scenes of his travels around China and abroad.
When he learned I was from the US, he was excited to show me paintings he created of places he visited around Southern California. That day he was putting the fishing touches on this one, depicting a scene from Laguna Beach, CA:
And this one is of a village in Shenzhen:
This one is of Tokyo:
I spent about three hours in total exploring the village. I estimate that there were at least 300 galleries there and it was a genuine treat to sample them.
I was tempted to acquire a piece of art from Dafen but didn’t find the perfect Renoir to match my living room décor. I’ll have to check out HomeGoods.
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I’m a freelance writer and editor. I produce feature articles, translate complex content into user-friendly language for presentations and websites, edit and proofread book manuscripts, and write engaging biographies. I accept projects of all sizes and welcome you to contact me if you need assistance.
Fascinating. Glad you stumbled upon the Sunrise Art Center. It always depresses me when I see shoppers loading up their carts at HomeGoods. It must have been an incredible trip!
This is at once discouraging and inspiring and of course, interesting. Thanks for the journey.