Wuhan, May 5 (Xinhua) -- In the early summer of May, a huge 3D painting came to life on the grass of Wuhan's East Lake Scenic Area.
"Painting koi and yellow crane towers on a 6,000 square meter grass makes me feel cool." In January this year, Hu Meiting, a "post-95" girl who graduated from the visual communication major, was attracted by the painting and decided to join the behind-the-scenes creative team - super painting café.
This young team created nearly a thousand unique public space art paintings in Wuhan, which were seen by many people and moved to social platforms such as Douyin, and received millions of views.
A 3D meadow painting created by the Super Painters team. (Xinhua News Agency)
"Grass paintings and murals, which are public space art paintings, are not only works of art, but also convey the culture and spirit of the city." Zhang Hao, the super painter manager, said.
In 2016, Zhang Hao, a graduate of the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts, was attracted by the opportunity to come into contact with public murals, and he was determined to build a team to display Wuhan's unique symbols with professional wall paintings and public murals.
At the beginning of the establishment of the team, there were many difficulties, on the one hand, the audience of public murals was narrow, many people were worried that the walls would be destroyed, on the other hand, the public murals should be painted with the consent of the relevant departments, which could not affect the appearance of the city, in addition, the works had to stand the test of time and meet the audience's preferences as much as possible.
60-meter-high finless porpoise-themed mural. (Xinhua News Agency)
In 2019, the team seized the opportunity of the renovation of residential buildings in the old residential area, took the initiative to apply, took the design manuscript to solicit opinions from the public, and finally moved the swimming finless porpoise to a floor of about 200 square meters. Since then, they have successively created a number of murals with the theme of porpoises, some of which are as high as 60 meters. "The cute smiling face of the porpoise is endearing, I grew up on the Yangtze River, and the painting of the porpoise is also to convey the concept of protecting wild animals and protecting the ecology of the Yangtze River." Zhang Hao said.
With the increase in the number of works and the improvement of quality, the popularity of the team has also increased, many enterprises have taken the initiative to initiate commercial cooperation, and the urban management departments and units in some urban areas have also expressed their willingness to provide venues.
"Although the presentation is different, we still hope that there will be a Wuhan brand in the work, and people who browse the works will have the idea of coming to Wuhan to have a look." Zhang Hao said they tried many ingenious designs, such as making the finless porpoise and the Yellow Crane Tower in the same frame, and cleverly using the shape of the distribution box to draw the bell of Jianghanguan.
Zhang Hao is painting. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Deng Nan
"I saw a group of people who were fighting for their dreams." Soon after joining the team, Hu Meiting said with emotion that whether it was for the overnight discussion of a version of the design plan, or because the weather changed and needed to rush to work, everyone would not complain.
Today, the Super Painting Café team has formed a complete operating system, and recently took over the largest mural project in a single area since its establishment, showing the East Lake Greenway on a wall of about 400 meters long. "The common goal brings us together, and we will continue to paint in urban spaces to add content to the city's cultural landscape." Zhang Hao said.