This video is 6 minutes long
The article content is 1,700 words
Starting from Exit A of Dafen Subway Station, walk 1,000 meters and have to make four big turns. , passing hundreds of trees.
The air in Shenzhen may not be fresh enough, but it is definitely free enough. At the end of such an inconspicuous street, in the rows of painting shops with wet oil paintings drying, there are countless artistic minds hidden here. people.
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Dafen Oil Painting Village was formerly Dafen Village in Buji, Longgang, Shenzhen. It was originally an ordinary Hakka village, with a total of less than 200 residents in the whole village. people.
Everything changed in 1989, when Hong Kong art dealer Huang Jiang came here with more than a dozen painters. He recruited students and workers to copy oil paintings, and his monthly salary could reach 2,000. many.
It was this salary, which was high enough at the time, that attracted a large number of painters to gather here.
It does not require very solid basic skills, nor does it require superb skills. One painter will paint mountains, and another painter will paint water. The one who paints mountains will pass it on to the one who paints water, and the one who paints trees will pass it on to the one who paints flowers. The assembly line operation enables batches of paintings to be efficiently produced and exported to foreign countries.
At that time, Huang Jiang did not expect that this copying model would be the prototype of the commercial oil painting industry in Dafen Village in the future. He did not know that that small Hakka village would later become the first oil painting industry in China. One village.
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What is the difference between a painter and a painter?
To put it in the simplest terms, a painter is like a copy machine.
Zhang Zhiguo, a member of the Chinese Calligraphers Association and a painter, said: "There are a large number of painters in the current painting world, and the paintings they paint all seem to be carved from the same mold. For example, the sales of peony paintings on the market are good nowadays, and a group of painters They are all painting peonies, and each peony looks the same. Such works have neither creativity nor vitality."
The difference between a painter and a painter lies in their intention.
But there is a group of people who are not painters, and cannot even be called painters. In the early years of Dafen Oil Painting Village, they could be seen everywhere, living in board houses with sixteen people per room, and there were even Many people don't even have a place to live, so they sleep on canvases and make do for the night.
The outside world at that time called these people painters.
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Most painters produce line paintings.
It is the kind of work that is usually used for home decoration and has little personal emotion and artistry, let alone collection value.
There are many paintings in Dafen Oil Painting Village.
Around 2005, according to statistics, 70% of the oil paintings in the European and American markets came from China, and 80% of them came from Dafen.
Huge demand and surging sales have supported a large number of painters, but the proliferation of traditional paintings in the art field has also become the focus of criticism from more and more people.
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We interviewed such a group of people in today’s video.
A group of people who have experienced the hesitation between business and art, and have persistence and trade-offs in their hearts.
It has been seven or eight years since Teacher Deng came to Dafen Oil Painting Village. It was at a time when Dafen Oil Painting Village was being criticized and discussed by the society for exporting paintings.
Although there are many discussions, Teacher Deng is still optimistic about the development prospects of Dafen Oil Painting Village. He explained to us, "After all, this is a focus point that combines art and commodities. There is a platform for us to play."
He admitted that life still has to be lived, no matter how much he loves painting , and those who make a living from this must first have food to eat before talking about dreams.
And art, in fact, should be more for the refined and popular.
In other words, in the eyes of collectors, a painting is a work of art. In the eyes of ordinary people, we can also see the beauty and value in the painting.
What Teacher Deng is doing now is to combine elegance with vulgarity and convey truth, goodness and beauty.
He said that he hopes that people who see his paintings will feel that the world is full of hope, the pictures are beautiful, they are already beautiful, and the world is beautiful and beautiful.
He hopes to inject people with an energy of upward growth.
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Tangtang is the manager of a handicraft shop in Dafen Oil Painting Village. She makes custom guitar paintings and teaches guitar lessons. She has a good voice and can sing well. When she was interviewed by us, she talked a lot about her growth and changes after coming to Dafen Oil Painting Village.
She said that she had no money when she first came out, so she chose to come to Dafen Oil Painting Village not only because it was a place where more people could see her works, but also because of the beautiful walls Rent is cheap.
When she first started painting, she was very particular about artistry. She helped people draw portraits, paying attention to structure and three-dimensionality. But then she gradually discovered that the paintings made in this way may have a level of appreciation of , but customers didn’t like it.
Because maybe customers just want a more beautiful version of themselves.
She said that maybe everyone working in this industry needs to go through such a path:
“Because we have to live, our paintings must first go into business. To transform it, I must first make it beautiful and highly decorative.”
But the love will never change.
She smiled and said to us, in fact, many times, when I really get involved, when some customers come to buy things, I feel like they are disturbing me, why do you want to come to buy things at this time? Well, can you come back and buy it tomorrow?
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In addition to the oil painter Mr. Deng and the handicraft shop owner Tang Tang mentioned above, we also interviewed Mr. Gao who makes Northeastern knife paintings, knife painter Mr. Wu, and traditional Chinese painters. Teacher Fu.
They are all working hard for a better life and burning themselves for art.
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Dafen Oil Painting Village.
This is the land of reality and the land of dreams.
Don’t be afraid if you have a dream. If you have a dream, chase it.