Two New Artists to Love!

This latest Dafen-Drop-By, being intrepid, we strolled down alleyways we hadn't seen before and stumbled across these two galleries:

I just loved that bust out there on the street, so stopped to ask the shop owner where he'd got it, and realised we were face-to-face with the model himself:

 Sam and Sam.

He's an artist called Sam but his business card is all in Chinese so I can't tell you anything more about him, except his work is truly amazing (double-click to see the quality of his art), he's drop-dead gorgeous, his e-ddress is: hhf56301@163.com and his phone number is 13613038535.

His English is excellent so I asked who'd made his bust and he called out and this lovely fellow emerged from the shop across the way:

Ianbo

Turns out the bust was a gift from his friend, a young artist called Ianbo, who owns the gallery across the way and who, under the name Bison Art, makes the most amazing sculptures, including large temporary seasonal public displays, and who is astonishingly in demand:

 Heather looks at the record 

of recent work 

and realises she's seen 

many of his installations before,

in Hong Kong.

Including this one for ...
is it Chocolate Rain?

Although there are many pieces he's made that I don't like, he can obviously turn his hand to anything and the standard of workmanship is amazing. He does "Portrait Sculpture" too from photographs which are so astonishingly good, I'd love him to do stuff for me.

And if you'd love him to do stuff for you too, Ianbo's business card is in English, so I can tell you he can be reached at:

bisonart@sina.com

bisonart@163.com

 Phone: 690693156

And his address is: Shop 6, Lane 5, Laowei West, Dafen, Shenzhen, China.

I imagine Sam's address is virtually the same, so you probably could use that address for both artists.

Over lunch, Heather decided that she is definitely bringing her daughter to Dafen when she visits next month, so asked if I'd take her around once more so she'd have her bearings, so we did one more walk-through ... and came across Sam again.

Just LOOK at what he's doing.  In the morning, he was painting a seascape, and four hours later he's doing a commissioned portrait:

Man, these Dafen artists work fast. And they are just so talented and wonderful. However, I'm pleased to see that spot of paint on Sam's sweater; the first time I've ever seen paint on a single one of them.

So there you are: two new artist's to love.  And if Liam from Newfoundland is still looking for an artist, just look at the quality of Sam's work.  How can you not commission him?

Another Day in Dafen

My plan to transform and transcend language barriers using nothing but goodwill, mime and a few sketches?

Nah, didn't work.

Kiwi Heather and I dashed up to Dafen yesterday, as we thought we were meant to, to pick up our commissions only to discover the paintings weren't ready and that the artist appeared to be awaiting our feedback in case he had to make changes before sending them to be framed.  Guess yesterday was "what do you think?" day and not "pick-em-up" day like we thought.

Damn that perpetual language barrier! 

Heather reviews a photograph 

of her finished portrait.

We never saw the actual paintings

which were clearly someplace else.

It's minions doing the grunt work 

in an alcove in some back alley,

I'm telling you.

For an entire week, Heather was so very excited about what the artist would do with the photo of her children she was "counting sleeps" and so was most disappointed he hadn't put his own strange spin on it. But nonetheless she had to admit it was an excellent painting so she OKed it.

And the portrait I commissioned?  It too wasn't what I asked for. With my fulsome mime and elaborate sketches I thought I'd illustrated that I wanted Father Bransfield's image extracted from Irish photographer Frank Kearn's gorgeous photo and placed instead against a background of stained glass windows with all this different-coloured light streaming through. So simple, yes? Instead...

 The artist's cutie-pie minion 

shows me my painting.

But just double-click to look what he did with it? Nothing very much, actually; simply playing up the strange subtextual narrative features that made me select that photo in the first place.

I commissioned this painting to be donated, if it was good enough, to Laucala Bay Parish in Suva, Fiji, where our dear friend Father Bransfield had his last posting.  I thought it would be nice to have him still there, for all time hanging on the wall in his study, since that was the place where he spread so much love and comfort, working his own particular brand of magic, for so many people.

Since I also intend to have other portraits done, only with Father much younger, to donate to Tutu Seminary, which he built, and a slightly older-version portrait for Lomeri Seminary, which he also build much later, this was just a test to see if it were possible.

So what do you think?  A success?

Hey, how churlish and too-too-surreal would it be to demand an artist do "bizarre and interesting" things in his paintings!  Imagine hitting one over the head and shouting "More weird! More weird!"! Nah! Not on! Although there's a part of me that thinks it would be rather fun.

Anyway, Heather and I talked about it over lunch, deciding that we did love our commissions, and that neither of us have any real complaints because, honestly, although they may not be what we wanted, nor what we thought we were paying for, the rendering is just so stunning and our paintings so beautiful just as they are, we are well served. And, sure, we speculated long and hard over why he didn't "Go All-Out Original" like he usually did, and ended up deciding that, because of that damned language barrier, our artist was too worried about misunderstanding us so just went with what we gave him.
 
Oh, and here's something else very interesting.  On the artist's desk there was a days'-old English language newspaper which I found really bizarre considering the gentleman doesn't speak English, so, while Heather was reviewing her portrait, I went through it, genuinely curious as to why it would be there ... and then I saw ...

First double-click on this photo,

then check out the news photo 

and immediately look upwards.

It's like deja vu all over again! 

Last week I noticed the artist taking sneaky photos of us and wondered why.  Now I know. In his bio, he's a newspaper photographer who decided to throw it all up to pursue a career as an artist, but, from this, I guess he's kept all his newspaper contacts and bolsters his income by still free-lancing here and there.

And, hey, how embarrassing is it that my New Year Resolution was to become more Planet-Friendly by being less of a consumer, and here it is, only two weeks later, and I'm being used to represent "Shenzhen's Consumer-Led Economic Recovery!"

Planet-Killing Consumer-Monster: C'est Moi!

But the up-shot of all this is ... we have to go back again next week. Heather was almost cross about it but me?  Oh no! Definitely not so much! And last night, when I told him, Keith kinda sneered a little and drawled "You obviously deliberately misunderstood so you could sneak in yet another visit to buy lots more paintings."

He's not right, although, you know, he's not entirely wrong either. On both these recent visits I've bought home more paintings; just ones I've seen in passing that I couldn't live without, and there are still a great many I really, really NNNNNEEEED and would love to go back for.

And, yes, we have definitely run out of wall space. Maybe, in future, we'll have to borrow other people's walls.  Any volunteers?

The Engine Room of Dafen

Artists at work. Since this is the engine room driving Dafen, let's wander down through the backstreets to see how it's done:

First off, and large, possibly the best photo I've ever taken in my life.  Just love the story in this:

The One Shot!

I see him as a farmer from the countryside

somewhere deep in China who has come here

with his young family

to see if he can earn a better life for them

from a gift he's always possessed.

After much pleading, gallery owner

has given him a chance to show

what he's capable of.

Too poor to rent an alcove,

and living in the streets

he's taking this one shot in a back alley

and giving it all he's got.

Every person in Dafen has a story. Talented painters rock up from all over China to take a chance on a future in art. And yes, here art is the commodity and in demand and they usually end up prosperous. Let me show you some more stories.

Oh no! My photo program has mixed up old and new photos of Dafen, but still I'm sure you can cope seeing some taken yesterday and some from earlier visits. 

 

See how most work in little alcoves or on the street and some combine rent and work together in a larger studio.  And please note how they never get paint on themselves.  I once saw an artist in an Armani suit painting a portrait of a gorilla and was almost finished and was still spotless. (Wonder if I can find that photo.) Like, huh? How do they manage it? OK, maybe they don't wipe their paint brushes on their pants like I do, but still!

But these artists! Always so clean. And damn, aren't they so talented. I can even say that when I don't like the work they're doing.

And there's several photos I know I have that are so beautiful and which I can't find, but I'll go looking and insert them when I eventually do find 'em.

Dafen Again

Took Kiwi Heather and Aussie Christine up to "The Magic Land Behind the Hand" yesterday:

 Kiwi Heather meets "The Hand"

As we already know, since this blog has visited many times in the past, this magical land is my favourite place on earth:  The Artist Village in Shenzhen up in Mainland China:

 DAFEN

Dafen Dining!

Kiwi Heather (on right) loved the place

but Aussie Christine (on left and not feeling well) 

says she vastly prefers 

Hui-An Artist Village in Vietnam.

For me, it was the usual lovely day. In fact, I can't think of any other way I'd prefer to spend my time than loafing around among art and artists with a fine meal thrown in for good measure.

Hey, on our wanderings, we actually found out the name of the strange artist who does those really dark and interestingly misshapen original paintings ... but that's so special it's a post for another day. And we also finally met an artist I've been admiring for a long time who does really interesting and often quite bizarre, dark and 'deeply subtextual' takes on portraits-from-photographs. Amazing stuff from a very original and exciting mind. Kiwi Heather was so inspired she handed over a photo of her children to be turned into one of his wonderfully strange oil paintings.

(He was very taken by the colour of her hair, by the way, and seemed very pleased when he saw that her kiddies shared that strange and beautiful gold colour, so I'm betting he'll do something around that theme.)

Also ... umm, Keith doesn't know and I don't think I should mention it until I've told him myself personally and face-to-face ... but ... but ... but ... the artist is soooo good and his work sooo interesting, and even though he didn't speak English I had to - like, really HAD to, because it would be a crime otherwise - commission him to do the painting I've had in my head for several months now.

But anyway, that's also for another post I think: what happens when you commission a painting from an artist who doesn't share any language in common with you, with only the odd rough sketch or two thrown in to explain. Really, really good fun and only 300 yuan complete with mounting and framing, and we pick them up late next week, so don't you too long to see the result?

(Two portraits completed in one week? Like, huh?  How fast does this guy work! He must have many minions to do the grunt-work for him, la!)

However, there are so many other posts in this, since I took a lot of photos, today I'll just show you different shots to those I've shown previously of what Dafen looks like physically, and we'll do the other posts later:

And since the entire place is all about art, let's end this post with a shot of a wall of paintings for sale:

Love? And if you want a piece of Dafen but can't make it there yourself, here's a person who can make it all happen for you:

Annie, 

the resident English speaker 

at Hui Dan Gallery

Information for how to reach her is in a previous post.  I'd find it for you only ...

Dafen-ing Again.

Madly fell in love with a water colour Lady R. has on her wall ...

... so I'm getting my own.

I've ordered changes, like the artist here couldn't do hands - and Lady R's snappish retort about that comment is posted below - so simply glued on photocopies and painted over the top, but my guy in Dafen CAN do hands so I've asked him to do them properly in proportion.

Anyway, watch this space because soon I'll be able to post up my very own copy of this one.

Mind you, I barely have any wall space left. Bloody Dafen! Simply too much wonderful art up there that I simply MUST own!

Later: Yayyy! They have my copy done! Now ... do I like it as much? Mmmmm!