You’re OTN, you’re in Hong Kong, what do
you do? Head out to the copy painting capital of China that’s what.
Da Fen is a couple of short train rides and
a border crossing into China from Hong Kong. It's packed with small studios
pumping out lookalike paintings for the world as well as framers and art supply
stores. If you know Heather Straka’s smoking girl paintings you've already seen
some of the product of China’s seemingly inexhaustible copying business.
So what is China painting, ok, copying, for
the world? Van Gogh is huge. We saw sunflowers, starry nights, cafes and many,
many self portraits. Monet waterlilies made a major appearance as did images by
Rothko and Lichtenstein, Warhol and Rembrandt alongside Mona Lisas and Maos,
landscapes and still lives, herds of wild horses and the cutest of cute
animals.
Having expected to be subjected to
hard-core sales pitches we were surprised to find an atmosphere of calm
studiousness pervading the entire four or five blocks of the painting village.
In each studio open to the street was an artist hard at work barely pausing to
look up when we asked to take photographs. While the level of skill varies
hugely most of the artists are art school trained. Didn’t see much drawing
going on and some of the larger more complex works (say Raphael’s The school of
Athens) were being painted over faintly printed digital reproductions. The
selection of subjects is crucial to this international art industry so the
artists tend to work off postcards that have proved popular. It's a smart way
to ensure their product will find a home somewhere.
