“When the forgery is the art”
“Painting and magical powers seem very much the same. Sometimes I’m unable to paint a thing. … I tried and tried, but nothing I did seemed any good. They were copies of paintings I’d seen somewhere before … and not very good copies either.”
Ursula, Kiki’s Delivery Service
I’ve taken up Chinese copy painting. In fact, while Ursula was speaking in the movie, I was literally making copies of screencaps from Kiki’s Delivery Service. In fact, I copied the title of this very blog post from this article about Chinese forgery art.
While others do gorgeous original work in less than an hour, I can spend hours, if not days, about on each reproduction. I am simultaneously too invested in the result and too enamored by different styles to commit … I putter over every square micron of the page in layers upon layers watercolour, only to cover everything with layers upon layers of gouache. (And then I have the gall to be frustrated that the results are too stiff, too deliberate, too manicured.)
You’re a starving artist if you try to make it making original work, you’re a forgery artist if you paint to not starve, and you’re me if you’re a starving forgery artist.
So while my paintings are reproductions, and Chinese blood does run through my veins, if there’s anything I’ve learned in my mini foray into the industry, it is that an authentic Chinese forgery artist is more than the sum of its parts. For, arguably, the philosophy of forgery art itself is that a painting is the sum of its strokes*. As for me, you can say that I make reproductions in an “original” way. And by “original”, I mean a highly inefficient and unprofitable way, the way that no self-respecting forgery artist would consider.
*If forged art were produced in an assembly line such that each worker “specializes” in painting one stroke on the painting, can the final product be considered art?
“You see, I hadn’t figured out what or why I wanted to paint. I had to discover my own style. When you fly, you rely on what’s inside of you, don’t you? … That same spirit is what makes me paint … we each need to find our own inspiration, sometimes it’s not easy.”
Ursula, Kiki’s Delivery Service
Drawing and painting are still technical rather than expressive practices for me. I wish I were fluent in the technique, but I also wish I have ideas to express at all… In the meantime, I’ll putter along as an aspiring copy painter–faking “fake it ’til you make it” itself.
“The ‘factory’ represents Western fascination … and fears about China’s rise. And an implicit derogation of China as a place of “copying” and imitation … serves as a constant reminder of the massive presence and productivity of China’s factories. … The notion of shan-zhai …. at first taken to denote low-quality ‘copycat’ goods … has gradually become associated with a particular vision of Chinese future: one rooted in copy, but ultimately generative of surprising, new and original elements.”
Starting Up Biology in China, Hallam Stevens
Even as I copy, I can’t help but make (in) my own image.
