Zhang Ai Min (Dapu)

Dapu (Zhang Ai Min) received his degree in art from the Henan Zhumadian Art Collage in 1991 and, later, took advanced lessons in modern art development from Li Zheng Tian, the famous artist/dissident/art teacher, at the Guangzhou Fine Arts Academy. Indeed, although he originally painted under the name Yang Zhang, his name, Dapu, meaning without guile, was bestowed upon him by Li Zheng Tian.
His career has taken him to the far corners of China. In the early 1990's, he lived in Shenzhen, in the east, just next to Hong Kong, where he befriended a number of Western artists from whom he learned some of his technique. But Dapu had a desire to experience and capture the lives of real people, in China, so, next, he set off for the far west to Xinjiang. In Xinjiang, he worked along side the Uyghur, picking cotton and helping farmers, and he painted landscapes and portraits from that area, most of which have ended up in collections of people from Shanghai.
In 2001, he traveled to the Tibetan Plateau, near Qinghai, to capture some scenes from that area of the world. He was so moved by the beauty of that rough and rugged area and the gentle people who live there that he decided to move his family, there, so that he could devote all of his time to producing art, chronicling the area and its peoples.
If you have never heard of Dapu before, it is because most of his works are bought directly by collectors, both inside and outside of China, before they ever get to a gallery or an exhibition.