China's Dafen Oil Painting Village

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/oil-painting-production-in-china-slideshow/

Dafen village, which produces 60% of the global trade in oil paintings.  Their work is excellent, but the artists earn only about $307 a month.

May inspiration and creativity be with you!

Threat to Afghan Buddhas

An interesting article from the New York Times with an excellent video (7:40) that details the destruction of Buddhist art and architecture in Afghanistan so that a copper mine can be created.  The video explains how much of the art is too large to be moved, so instead it will be destroyed, for the sake of profit.  It is so sad that we often value money over our shared cultural heritage.  Afghanistan was an extremely important location on the Silk Road, responsible for the exchange of ideas and the spread of Buddhism from India to other locations in the east and west.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/opinion/a-chinese-threat-to-afghan-buddhas.html?smid=pl-share

‘A Chinese Threat to Afghan Buddhas’
In Afghanistan, a Chinese mining company threatens to destroy the remains of an ancient Buddhist city, which archaeologists are now racing to excavate.
by Brent E. Huffman (4/23/2013)


May inspiration and creativity be with you!

"China's Terracotta Warriors" from PBS

A great and updated film about Shihuangdi's Terracotta Army.  It includes some excellent footage that explains the restoration techniques and fragile state of the paint on the sculptures.  There is also some interesting footage of the scientific properties of Chinese purple and a fully painted reproduction of one of the soldiers, showing you just how brightly painted they really were, which is a little shocking if you are not used to looking at painted sculpture.  It originally aired on PBS 05/04/11 and is also currently available on Netflix, enjoy!
http://video.pbs.org/video/1907176069/

Watch China's Terracotta Warriors on PBS. See more from Secrets of the Dead.

May inspiration and creativity be with you!

Chinese Performance Artist Zhang Huan

Zhang Huan, Family Tree, 2000. Still Photograph of a performance in New York.

Of all the contemporary Chinese artists working today, Zhang Huan has always stood out to me as a dominant force. He has recently turned away from performance art and back towards more traditional media; but, his current work still emulates his spirit and conveys complex ideas. In his performance work he has often addressed the complicated issues surrounding identity, particularly what it means to be Chinese and yet live in the convoluted global society of today. He intensely examines the difficult issues of how one can hold onto Chinese traditions while still moving forward into contemporary life and thought.

He has said of this piece: "I invited 3 calligraphers to write texts on my face from early morning until night. I told them what they should write and to always keep a serious attitude when writing the texts even when my face turns to dark. My face followed the daylight till it slowly darkened. I cannot tell who I am. My identity has disappeared. This work speaks about a family story, a spirit of family. In the middle of my forehead, the text means "Move the Mountain by Fool (Yu Kong Yi Shan)". This traditional Chinese story is known by all common people, it is about determination and challenge. If you really want to do something, then it could really happen. Other texts are about human fate, like a kind of divination. Your eyes, nose, mouth, ears, cheekbone, and moles indicate your future, wealth, sex, disease, etc. I always feel that some mysterious fate surrounds human life which you can do nothing about, you can do nothing to control it, it just happened."

You can see more of the artist's works and read more about him on his website at:
http://www.zhanghuan.com/

A video clip where he talks about some of his most recent work.


May inspiration and creativity be with you!