A Mystery Solved

Many times in here we've talked about an artist in Dafen who's work I love but who is never home.

Margaret and I first met this "Angry Young Man" in person back in 2004 on our first ever Dafen-Drop-by and thought him exceptionally talented. We loved the startling originally of his work and the depth of his vision, but, back then, both of us found the paintings very disturbing, like they were a sublimation of very dark, angry and sinister desires and so, speculating that he perhaps would burn out before he got anywhere, we didn't bother to find out his name.

However, over the years, whenever we've gone to Dafen, I've kept an eye on what he's up to and, instead of witnessing the expected deterioration or detonation, watched him grow and develop both as an artist and a man and seen for myself how he's shaken off "the horror, the horror" while keeping all that was good about his work. Extraordinary stuff!

But once we recognised this flowering of genuine genius and became serious fans, he stopped being home. Like, not ever. Nonetheless it was interesting to watch his life unfold just from looking at his gallery - which has morphed over the years into many different forms with very different vibes - and so we've always speculated on what it was reflecting about what was happening in his life, on the assumption that the outer was mirroring the inner.

Like, how's this one?  We can guess what's just happened, can't we:

Yes, our "Angry Young Man" had become a dad.

 The latest transformation, by the way, I'm really not liking much:

 

In Fiji we call that colour 

"Government Green"

and associate it with 

bad domestic architecture.

And those tyres? Like, huh?

And because he's never in, we've simply peered through the door at his latest crop of paintings and watched the subtle transformations of his vision, and more and more I'm realising he's there as an artist and ready for The Big Time, and thinking I really should buy something by him. And soon too. (I could have bought a Yue Mingjun painting I loved back in 2003 for US$5,000.00, and that exact same painting recently sold at auction for US$16 million. Damn!)

This visit, however, for the first time in four years of dropping by, the gallery was open and manned, only by a very charming woman instead of the artist himself, but I didn't get to buy. Aussie Christine was feeling sick and HAD to eat immediately thus we couldn't spend any time among his art.

But we did, however, find out his name:

CAI JUN

And if you trust my judgement enough to want to buy into him, his number is: 13428729115, and his e-ddress is cai junyi1981@163.com.

And now I know who he is, I think I'll Google him and see what I can find out.  And, naturally, I'll let you know if I discover anything really interesting.

Later:  

Discovered there's a famous Chinese artist called Cai Jin but I've tracked down his work, which I don't like nearly as much, and it definitely isn't our guy, Cai Jun.