Mona Lisa for $20? No problem

A masterpiece wings its way to another lucky customer. Picture / Reuters

SHENZEN - Art dealers in Dafen in southern China cut quickly to the chase when it comes to selling their copies of paintings by world famous artists.

"We can give you Tintoretto's View of Venice for 500 yuan [$90]", says Xu Yi, a gallery owner and occasional pointillist, before whipping out a calculator. "Or we can do a Matisse, just 150 yuan. Van Gogh for 120. Sunflowers. You like the Sunflowers?"

It's the kind of hustle familiar to China these days. This is art at its most industrial: last year, Dafen's artist army accounted for $90 million in sales and figures are rising fast.

Dafen, a suburb of China's richest city Shenzhen, is slick and upmarket, just as one would expect the centre of southern China's burgeoning oil-painting copy industry to be.

It's a long way from the grimy bazaars of yesteryear. The dealers, publicised on their own internet sites, are web-savvy. Individual shoppers browse, but the big bucks come from corporate clients. It is described as a village, but Dafen is more a giant painting factory than an artist colony.

Xu Yi's gallery is narrow, well-lit and the walls are covered with paintings, ranging from Gaugin rip-offs to a few portraits of the Queen. Toulouse-Lautrecs rub shoulders with alarmingly realistic Pamela Andersons.

Dafen was originally an artists' colony set up 15 years ago by a Hong Kong painter and would-be businessman, Huang Jiang. He arrived with just 20 painters. Now, Dafen has 600 painting shops and 2000 artists.

It is different from other copy industries in China, which involve copyright abuse and piracy. No one is trying to sell the paintings as originals.

Most paintings sell for between $20 and $30. "How about this?" Xu emerges with Mona Lisa, her enigmatic smile perfectly captured by an artist working on about $12 a day.

The most popular work on offer is Sunflowers, of which there appears to be an endless supply. "It takes about one-and-a-half days to do a Van Gogh like this one," Lu Xingping says, casting a glance at a small catalogue copy of the original. "I don't know how many times I've painted this picture, but I've been doing it for over 10 years. Probably hundreds of times."

Something's wrong with the painting. It is a reasonably accurate representation, but something is askew. Are the colours different? "Yes, some people want me to change the background. If people have a different colour scheme in their house, they might want a blue van Gogh rather than a yellow one."

A book of art history functions as a catalogue for the painters and the index is a shopping list for the would-be buyer. I ask for a Dali.

"Salvador Dali is hard, lots of colours and lots of detail. But we can do it - just give us a bit of time," says Lu.

In Ling Jung's studio there are racks of the inevitable Sunflowers hanging out to dry. "When I graduated 12 years ago I was supposed to be an art teacher, but the prospects weren't good. I came to Shenzhen to try to find a better life." And with that, he turns to his masterpiece.

- INDEPENDENT