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November 27, 2021

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From rags to gouaches: Self-taught painter makes life into masterpiece

Wei Guangming pays his monthly electricity bill by selling one reproduction copy of “Sunflowers” by Claude Monet and pays for petrol for his motor tricycle with three replicas of “The Wave” by Gustave Courbet.

Wei, a garbage collector, paints replicas of famous artworks of outstanding artists worldwide one by one. With earnings from the reproductions, he decorated his new home and pays his four sons’ school expenses, creating a better life for his family.

The self-taught painter creates his art in his small and cramped studio in Shaoxing, east China’s Zhejiang Province. The dimly lit 20-square-meter room, where he also cooks and sleeps, is piled with cartons, discarded metal and waste home appliances retrieved in the neighborhood for sale.

Catapulted into online fame for sharing his cherry-picked classic mimics, the 48-year-old is regarded as special for his seamless switch from the grueling daytime job of collecting recyclable materials to a sedentary nightlife of contemplating layers, colors and composition.

“A humble abode can’t confine one’s dream.”

“His experience tells us why interest is the best teacher.”

Netizens inspired by his spirit and works responded with an outpour of support, and dozens of journalists beat a path to his door, with a frame so low as to, in his words, have a noble soul bow before entering.

He never tires of telling the story of Jean-Francois Millet, a well-known French painter.

“Millet suffered worse conditions than mine,” said Wei. “He kept painting in a tiny room for 27 years with no income.”

Wei bought an easel last year and wrote three sentences on it: “Would die a starver rather than surrender. Would die a starver rather than steal. Would die a starver rather than beg.”

He received a message online after he uploaded his paintings, implicating that he “collects and sells recyclable materials by day but steals by night.”

“I was so angry that I wrote down the three sentences as a response,” said Wei.

Wei was once willing to do any odd jobs for money. He made 30 yuan (US$4.60) a day by smashing gravel with a hammer for urban infrastructure. He also dug ditches in the mountains to bury cables.

He was interested in painting at an early age and used to draw portraits for passers-by in south China’s Guangdong Province.

However, he stopped doing that and settled down in Shaoxing in 2003 in exchange for a stable income to support his family.

The turnaround came five years ago. A personnel manager of a plastics plant requested he copy a landscape painting he posted on his WeChat Moments, which brought him money.

He bought picture albums and watched videos via a secondhand computer to improve his painting skills. After he went viral online, oil-painting orders flocked.

Wei can copy three famous oil paintings per day when his “inspiration comes,” with each selling at between 300 yuan and 500 yuan. Sometimes, he sends another picture to his customer if he was unsatisfied with his paintings, saying: “What I give them must be worthy of the price.”

Wei lives a simple life alone with low consumption, sending most of his income to his wife and sons back in his hometown in central China’s Hubei Province. He has almost no recreation, except reading books and exchanging ideas with other oil-painting lovers on an online forum.

The forum gathers more than 100,000 oil-painting lovers, including retired workers, rural teachers, greengrocers and art students. Knowing that Wei has recently become an Internet celebrity, they sent congratulations while expressing their own expectations: “Who will be the next?”

However, the sudden fame failed to change Wei’s daily routine.

“I can’t rely on the orders from curiosity and attention to me, and I must keep learning and practicing to improve my painting skills. But now, I will continue collecting recyclable materials for a steady income.”

Wei has his own understanding of his popularity online.

“When more and more young people, with enough to get by, prefer to ‘lie flat,’ the society needs a belief that we can paint gorgeous colors from the bustling life often considered as commonplace,” he said.




 

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