Dafen Painting Village - Shenzhen, China: In search of some kind of wonderful

Yesterday, I took the new subway line out to the hinterlands of Shenzhen. This line rises above ground like a mighty dragon taking to the sky.  From here, you can see the amazing urban sprawl and rapid building. Only a few years ago, this area was the hilly farmland that supplied the fresh produce for the fishing village that was Shenzhen once.


I got off in nondescript neighborhood filled 7-11's, street vendors and gated high rises whose modernness is undermined by the blowing laundry exploding out the windows. Everything looks the same here. Nothing is too beautiful nor too ugly.


I walked around lost trying to get my bearings. Outside a KFC, I asked someone for directions.  He pointed me in the right direction and I stumbled down the stairs into the Dafen Painting Village. 


The Dafen Painting village like every other industry in China is about mass production and specialization in its abilities for knock offs of great pieces of art. China is highly skilled at making a realistic fakes. In the new China, innovation and creativity is not really encouraged.  Mindless mass production is the way (even in thought)......


In fact, Dafen is the world's

leading center for 

mass-produced works of art. 

The painting village exports 

about five million paintings 

every year --- 60% of the 

world's reproductions. Some 

artists paint up to 30 

paintings a day.  


Most of the paintings you 

will see will end up in some 

hotel or office building in 

the west. Hanging as a 

testament to 

Globalization.... (creations 

of the west mass produced in 

the east)!



Yet, it is not a completely sad tale.  If you walk around to the shops, you can find a few startling original works trying hard to blend into the mix of Picassos, Van Goghs...... 

Creativity in China is hidden in the ashes and waiting to rise again like the Phoenix! 


I think I will make my mission this year to find these quiet little flames and sparks.