Newman Huo
AMERICAN artist John R. Hobby believes teaching art to Chinese children in Shenzhen has not only rejuvenated him but also inspired him in his own artistic creation.
Hobby, 60, teaches art and English to Chinese students, aged 4 to 16, at the Shenzhen Children’s Palace in Futian District at weekends and spends weekdays painting in his studio in the Dafen Oil Painting Village in Longgang District.
“I love working with these children because they have given me so much inspiration for my own life and art,” said Hobby.
“Children are naturally creative and have a wonderful imagination. They are always looking for ways to express themselves.
“As a teacher, it is my responsibility to teach children how to appreciate other people’s culture through art,” he said.
Hobby is busy preparing a number of works for an international art exhibition in Shanghai next year.
He was motivated to move to China when he embarked on writing a book on Chinese women’s poetry in the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties in 2003, one year after obtaining a doctorate in ancient history and archaeology from Birmingham University in England.
However, when he arrived in China, he found he couldn’t further his writing project because he couldn’t read Chinese, which limited his access to ancient Chinese texts.
At the end of 2005, he became the first foreign artist painting in the Dafen Oil Painting Village after one of his Chinese friends in the village invited him to paint in his gallery.
During his stay in the village, Hobby has come to know most of the Chinese painters and art dealers there and they have become good friends.
“With more than 600 galleries, the Dafen Oil Painting Village is one of the largest art communities in the world,” said Hobby.
Born in Texas in the United States in 1948, Hobby was inspired by his artist mother to become a painter when he began learning to paint at the age of 12.
After living in Texas for about 30 years, he moved to California in 1987 to work for a gallery there.
He decided to return to college in 1989 and received a B.A. in anthropology from the University of California in Los Angeles in 1994. He then went to England to pursue his doctorate in 1997.