With the continued growth in its economy, China has become one of the world's leading exporters of art and craft products. The oil painting industry continues to grow and a single village is responsible for producing around 60% of the world's oil paintings.

Defen is a village surrounded by the thriving metropolis of Shenzan, and the origin of most of the worlds reproduction oil paintings. More than 5,000 talented artists and over 500 painting art dealers make it the most concentrative base in the world to manufacture painting craftworks.

The artists producing this work have different amounts of experience, from young students who have just begun their careers to highly experienced painters, with bachelor degrees, who can paint copies of old masters to museum quality. The low cost of labour means that works of art can be exported at a fraction of the price that the American and European galleries command.

The quality of the work will vary and as is common practice, the better the quality the higher the price, but even at the cheaper end of the market, you can purchase the texture and smell of a fine oil painting at a competitive cost which provides an alternative to a print, which really is just a piece of paper in a frame.

This industry provides a living wage, which is vastly different to what someone in the USA or Europe would find acceptable, to thousands of artists from all over China and their service provides quality art work at low cost for thousands of homes throughout the world.