DAFEN Village in Buji, Longgang District, has been known in Shenzhen, China and even the world as an oil painting village for years. Its fame attracts many young painters and artists who hope to own a studio in which they paint and sell paintings. However, as the real estate market in the city has boomed over the past decades, rent for a room in the former urban village has also been rising, whereas prices for oil paintings have been declining. Under the circumstances, some young painters have chosen to set up their painting boards in the already narrow alleys of the village to survive. Some painters who are able to pay for a room sublease a wall of their rented room, usually the exterior wall, to other painters to help offset their rising rent. However hard the condition may be, the painters are driven by their dreams and their pursuit of art. (SD News) |