Small city looks at the big picture

Yao Dingkang, an international trade expert, said oil paintings should be designed according to their final use, for example, with different series for home decoration, restaurants, hotels and churches. This will be more targeted compared with the current classification of subjects and styles, he wrote earlier in a commentary on the industry.

Apart from improving their designs, some producers have gone even further to provide completely original works, going from decorative paintings to fine art.

Dafen has been trying to change into a producer of both replicas and original artworks, targeting the high-end market. It terms the strategy as "walking on both feet".

An increasing number of galleries of original works have appeared in the area, with prices starting from several thousand yuan for a painting. About one-third of the oil paintings produced in Dafen are original works, according to the village's administrative office.

Chen Dawei, a contemporary artist in Dafen, said most of his paintings are sold in China, while in the past his works mainly went to Europe.

But fine art is a different world from commercial painting. It's about taking part in exhibitions, and entering galleries of original works and auctions, which artists in Dafen village have to learn step by step, he said.

Some dealers have made efforts in e-commerce to take advantage of higher sales prices overseas.

Chen Linyan, who used to work for an outdoor sports equipment company, quit his job last year to open online stores on eBay, selling paintings from Putian.

He entered the industry after he found that an oil painting priced at 200 yuan at a Chinese gallery can be sold for $50 to $60 on eBay, and the prices are still attractive for overseas consumers.

A painting from Putian may be sold at 10 to 100 times its production price when it reaches a US or European customer through a number of art dealers, according to industry estimates.

The majority of the paintings Chen sells are reproductions, which he gets from painters in Putian. After deducting production and international delivery costs, his workshop can have a gross margin of 20 percent, earning about 80,000 yuan a month, he said.

Yao, the trade expert, suggested Chinese oil painting producers change from being "manufacturers" to "distributors", selling directly to overseas markets, he wrote in an earlier commentary.

"The first step toward going global is to set up an office in the market for the convenience of contacting customers," he wrote.

"If everything goes well, a company can then have an exhibition center, sales center and distribution center overseas."

While an increasing number of Chinese players have tried to set up overseas sales networks, the move is not as easy as some imagine.

"Companies can price the paintings higher in this way, but the profits they get are not as much as they may originally think," said Zhuang from Xiamen, adding that the high costs of overseas marketing, transport, taxes and expertise will eat into margins.

Faced with difficulties in sales networks, Putian plans to build a trade center that can eventually hold 1,000 oil painting workshops and galleries. Some 50 galleries will open there in the near future, said Putian's Lin.

Xianyou, a county of Putian, also plans to build an industry park with 1 billion yuan investment that will be home to 100 oil painting companies and thousands of studios .

The moves will enable Putian to change from a production base to one with sales channels. Painters that work in the numerous obscure houses in the city may eventually move to a cluster of studios, where customers from China and beyond can visit and buy paintings.

chenlimin@chinadaily.com.cn