{"id":367713,"date":"2025-12-04T00:54:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/?p=367713"},"modified":"2025-12-04T00:54:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:54:32","slug":"making-a-living-on-canvas-reproduction-creation-and-survival-in-dafen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/making-a-living-on-canvas-reproduction-creation-and-survival-in-dafen\/","title":{"rendered":"Gagner sa vie sur toile : reproduction, cr\u00e9ation et survie \u00e0 Dafen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"peinture<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Zhao Fenggang\u2019s day usually starts at noon. After a quick wash and a bite to eat, he settles into the living room, where easels crowd every corner. Some days, inspiration doesn\u2019t come at all, and by night he may have painted only a few strokes. But when the \u201cfeeling\u201d arrives, he can keep going until dawn the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 1989, a Hong Kong art dealer named Huang Jiang came to a small village in Shenzhen, Guangdong, called Dafen. He saw two advantages there: low costs and its close proximity to Hong Kong. He brought people in to copy oil paintings, then shipped them overseas. That was how the Dafen oil-painting industry first took shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"peinture<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thirty-six years later, Dafen has become the largest oil-painting production and trading base in China. People now instinctively call it \u201cDafen Oil Painting Village.\u201d Today, it holds thousands of galleries and art studios, with more than 8,000 people working in related fields. Zhao Fenggang is one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Dafen, the meaning of the word \u201cpainting\u201d has never stopped evolving. The entire chain around painting\u2014upstream and downstream\u2014has kept stretching outward. If you\u2019re willing, you can always find a place for yourself somewhere in that chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dafen isn\u2019t large, but when it comes to the question of \u201chow to make a living by painting,\u201d it can hold hundreds, even thousands, of different answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The more you paint, the more you earn<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Even now, twenty years later, Zhao Fenggang still remembers his first time walking into Dafen with a sense of surprise. \u201cBefore that,\u201d he says, \u201cI never imagined painting could be a way to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He didn\u2019t finish high school. At a young age, he left his hometown in Gansu and headed south, doing whatever work he could find\u2014construction sites, factory lines, anything. When he first arrived in Shenzhen in 2004, he was only eighteen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, while searching for jobs on the street, a recruitment notice caught his eye. It had been pasted upside down, but the words were clear: \u201cPainters wanted. Basic skills preferred.\u201d Following the address, he found a studio in Dafen. \u201cJust try,\u201d the boss said, handing him a reference image to copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhao had liked drawing since childhood and had learned watercolor and gouache in school clubs, but he had never touched oil paint before. Still, he copied the sample stroke by stroke. The boss nodded. \u201cNot bad for a beginner.\u201d He was hired on the spot\u2014earning less than 1,000 yuan a month, roughly the same as factory workers nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By then, after more than a decade of growth, Dafen had entered its era of mass \u201corder paintings.\u201d Whatever image a client brought, painters reproduced it. Whatever quantity a client wanted, painters delivered. Landscapes, portraits, famous masterpieces, ordinary photos\u2014someone in Dafen could paint it. Besides small street studios, there were also large painting factories where hundreds of painters worked like a production line, filling orders together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once Zhao got familiar with materials and techniques, he improved fast. Within a month, he could finish most orders on his own. After three months, he moved to a piece-rate studio. \u201cBack then,\u201d he recalls, \u201cone painting could earn about 30 yuan. The more you painted, the more you made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same year, Dafen became the only sub-venue of Shenzhen\u2019s first International Cultural Industries Fair. The village\u2019s model drew national attention, orders poured in, and the industry hit its peak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Painter Lin Jianhong from Guangxi remembers that peak vividly. He arrived in Dafen in early 2008 and joined a factory with nearly 500 employees. With endless repeated orders, painters didn\u2019t work \u201cone by one,\u201d but \u201crow by row.\u201d A line of canvases would be set up: sketch all of them first, then base color, then midtones, then detailing. Using that system, Lin could complete almost thirty one-meter-square paintings a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had their tricks too. For example, mix a large batch of paint before starting, because matching the exact same color twice is nearly impossible. If a canvas showed color differences, it meant extra time fixing and repainting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During rush seasons, painters barely went home. They slept on packing boxes beside their easels, then woke up and kept painting. Even with machines roaring for cutting, laminating, and framing, they could fall asleep anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut not long after I arrived,\u201d Lin says, \u201cthat scene slowly disappeared. Now you don\u2019t see it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

What you can<\/em> paint vs. what you want<\/em> to paint<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

At first, Lin earned about 6,000 yuan a month, while veteran painters around him made over 10,000. That was good money even for Shenzhen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the boom didn\u2019t last. The 2008 global financial crisis hit, export orders collapsed, and by the end of that year Lin\u2019s factory had almost no work left. He quit, rented an apartment with other painters, and began to find clients on his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those days, the painter\u2019s rented home doors stayed open in daytime\u2014partly to clear the smell of paints, partly because they waited for people to walk through the village \u201cdropping off orders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of Lin\u2019s earliest steady clients was an online seller who walked into his living room holding a photo and asked, \u201cCan you paint this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a typical \u201cNine Koi Fish\u201d prosperity picture. \u201cYes,\u201d Lin answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, popular domestic sellers were prosperity-themed images\u2014peonies, money trees, golden mountains. Smartphone references weren\u2019t common yet; most painters worked from printed photographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"peinture<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And it wasn\u2019t as simple as it looked. Lin later asked an art-academy graduate friend to copy a normal landscape photo, and the friend couldn\u2019t achieve the texture at all. \u201cTo paint it well,\u201d Lin explained, \u201cyou need to build relief with modeling paste first, then do base and layered brushing.\u201d Years of factory copying had pushed Dafen painters to develop a whole set of practical techniques\u2014often using tools beyond brushes. \u201cPeople without that training,\u201d he said, \u201ceven professionals, often can\u2019t match the effect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Painter Yang Fuxu, also from Guangxi but academically trained, arrived in Dafen in 1999 and focused on watercolor reproductions, which were less common and more demanding. For nearly two years, he lived on a reversed schedule\u2014sleeping by day, painting by night. His skills sharpened through constant copying, but the repetition gradually exhausted him. \u201cOrder paintings may look easy,\u201d he said, \u201cbut high-precision copying is tiring, and it leaves almost no room for personal expression.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unwilling to keep \u201cpainting for someone else\u2019s demands,\u201d Yang left his studio in 2001 and became one of the earliest painters in Dafen to explore original work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zeng Qingjin from Henan had also painted order works for ten years. In 2013 he stopped taking orders completely and devoted himself to original painting. Zeng Guifu from Fujian had been an original painter before coming to Dafen. He remembers buying canvases and paints before even thinking about meals. \u201cI don\u2019t know how many bowls of noodles I lived on,\u201d he said. But passion alone was never enough to become a full-time original artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Eating to live, painting to speak<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Recently, Zhao\u2019s apartment is still filled with unfinished canvases. One shows children walking forward in warm tones, but one child looks back with a devil\u2019s face. Inspired by a bullying news story, Zhao is working on a series about human nature. Around those canvases lie stacks of paid orders. \u201cI use copying to support my originals,\u201d he says\u2014\u201cpainting to feed painting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the financial crisis, overseas orders recovered slowly. Guided by local government policy, Dafen began a transition, supporting original art more strongly. The new direction pushed many long-time order painters toward a crossroads. \u201cWhether to do original work isn\u2019t just a choice,\u201d Zhao says. \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of survival.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once Zeng Qingjin stepped out of the order-painting system, he lost stable income. If his originals didn\u2019t sell for a long time, his family\u2019s finances collapsed. He and his wife sometimes had to borrow money to get by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhao once rented a small shop in Dafen in 2015 to sell his own work. \u201cBusiness was miserable,\u201d he laughed bitterly. After years of copying, when painters tried to express themselves, the market didn\u2019t respond the way it did to orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yang Fuxu went through something similar. In 2007 he paid his own way to study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He absorbed exhibitions, conversations, ideas, and returned to Dafen with a new environmental series using migrating fish as metaphor. Yet for years, no buyers came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even selling a work doesn\u2019t guarantee stability. In 2016 Zeng Qingjin made a massive collage-like piece from torn cloth, two meters high and 5.4 meters long, and sold it for a high price. \u201cI thought I had made it,\u201d he said, but afterward his works still didn\u2019t sell easily. \u201cThe art market is too uncertain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you\u2019re free from customer demands, a different problem appears: what should you paint? Freedom can feel like opening a blind box\u2014every work\u2019s fate is uncertain. One year Zhao finished only two paintings. He had ideas and emotion, but every revision felt \u201cnot quite right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His gallery couldn\u2019t survive. He returned to orders for steady income, while keeping a small space for originals. \u201cYou have to stay alive first,\u201d he says, \u201cbefore you can keep speaking through your art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yang refused to go back. After his earlier series failed, he painted some more market-friendly originals while continuing to develop his own language. Years later, he created the \u201cDancers\u201d series based on tree forms. This time, the market nodded. The works entered exhibitions and sold well. More importantly, his style gained recognition\u2014and the once-ignored fish series eventually found buyers too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Dafen has over 400 original artists. In the past five years nearly 200 works by Dafen painters have been selected for national or provincial exhibitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Beyond the canvas<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, when Zeng Guifu first moved from Xiamen to Shenzhen, he searched online: \u201cWhere are the richest people in Shenzhen?\u201d By then he had stopped making original art. \u201cWhen the noodles were gone and my paintings still didn\u2019t sell,\u201d he said, \u201cI knew I had to change my path.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He turned out to be luckier in business. Back in Xiamen he had run a mural studio with friends. After arriving in Shenzhen, he read about \u201cparticipation\u201d as a concept. With social media exploding, he noticed that more people wanted to share their experiences online. \u201cCould painting become something everyone participates in?\u201d he asked himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2014 he opened Dafen\u2019s first oil-painting experience shop. At first the idea was too new. Some customers hesitated at the door when they heard they had to pay to try. Others sat by the easel afraid to ruin the canvas. Zeng encouraged them, saying oil paint can always be corrected, and demonstrated the steps over and over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, during the Shenzhen Cultural Expo, he was invited to set up a booth at a creative market. Unexpectedly, his booth became the most popular one. People queued just to paint for themselves. After that, business took off. The shop expanded into many art services and events. Soon, \u201cpainting experience\u201d signs began popping up throughout Dafen\u2014the industry reaching ordinary people in a new way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Dafen, \u201cmaking a living by painting\u201d had long gone beyond the canvas. In 2014, Lin Jianhong got a job painting scenery for a theme park. The standards were strict; every color had to match the color card perfectly. Many academy students had to redo their work. Lin, who had copied thousands of paintings, had developed razor-sharp color sensitivity. He could mix quickly and accurately, impressing even professional supervisors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later he joined another large park project, aging a giant antique ship. With Dafen order-painting techniques, he and his partners added rust, water stains, decay, wood grain, and corroded textures until the illusion looked real. \u201cIt was still order painting,\u201d Lin said\u2014only this time, the \u201ccanvas\u201d was an entire space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the results were so convincing, the team won more projects. A job planned for three months extended to four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After nearly twenty years in Dafen, Lin has never fully left the order-painting system. But he believes the system has changed. \u201cRather than \u2018order painting,\u2019 it\u2019s become \u2018custom painting,\u2019\u201d he says. Demand still exists, but expectations are different. Good painters are no longer mechanical repeaters; they must keep improving, giving real value even to reproductions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Holding together, growing together<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Near the entrance of Dafen stands a striking building housing TNT International Art Space. Zeng Qingjin now rents a studio there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, Feng Jianmei\u2014who had long run a framing factory\u2014founded TNT International Art Space. Her goal was to break the stereotype that Dafen only produces copied works, and to create a platform for original artists. But once the project started, she realized artists needed more than a gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creation is only one link in the chain. Many original painters in Dafen used to work alone. Besides painting, they had to find buyers, negotiate prices, and chase sales. Without stable income, some returned to orders, breaking their creative continuity. Their energy drained, their works sold for less, and a vicious cycle formed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across from TNT, the T5 Contemporary Art Center opened in 2024, founded by Long Jingchuang, head of the Dafen Fine Art Industry Association. He has painted orders, originals, run studios, and built decorative-art businesses since arriving in 1996. In his view, the road of originality is hard. Few can walk it through alone. For Dafen to become a true center for original art, \u201cgroup survival\u201d is necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since opening, T5 has signed more than fifty artists, most of them local Dafen painters, and promotes their works through exhibitions and academic exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At TNT, Feng Jianmei launched an artist-in-residence program: free studio space, plus exhibition planning, sales channels, and copyright management. \u201cThe idea is to remove their worries,\u201d she says, \u201cso they can focus solely on creation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zeng Qingjin was one of the first to join. With TNT\u2019s support, he regained a stability he hadn\u2019t felt in years. \u201cJust like when I took orders long ago,\u201d he says, \u201cI only need to paint\u2014except now I paint my own work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effect showed quickly. After nearly seven years in the program, his style matured, and he produced more complete, systematic bodies of work than ever before. With professional management behind him, \u201cselling paintings no longer depends on luck or coincidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not far from TNT stands an old, weathered sign reading: \u201cWorld Oil Paintings \u00b7 China Dafen.\u201d Since he began order painting in 2003, Zeng Qingjin has lost count of how many reproductions and originals have traveled from Dafen to every corner of China and beyond. Recently, he has a new idea: to return to his hometown in Henan for a while, seek fresh inspiration there, then bring the new works back to Dafen for exhibition and sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If he succeeds, perhaps the words \u201cChina Dafen\u201d will gain yet another meaning.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zhao Fenggang\u2019s day usually starts at noon. After a quick wash and a bite to eat, he settles into the living room, where easels crowd every corner. Some days, inspiration doesn\u2019t come at all, and by night he may have painted only a few strokes. But when the \u201cfeeling\u201d arrives, he can keep going until […]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":367714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dafen-oil-painting-village"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dafennet.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}