The China Dream

For the past 20 years in America, our society has grown up with everything at easy reach. We simply went to Walmart and we could pick and choose anything we wanted at a “low price guaranteed.” We never thought about where all these things were produced. China as a result has grown on a large economic scale and in the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai we have an astounding growth of civilization. As new visitors come to the big city they are discovering a brand new world. This reimagined city(Shanghai) is quickly becoming one of the most influential meccas of art and innovation in the world.

THE WEST MEETS EAST. Today, with the new era of China opening up to the world, more and more we are combining both cultures. The Ying and the Yang so to speak. This is my documentary of the new China, one that is breathtaking, raw and surprisingly not what China traditionally is. We go through this journey with the medium of contemporary painting of a westerner living in the middle of the action of one of the most fast-paced cities currently on earth. It is a booming Mecca, of money, of real estate, of innovation, of art.

Jake Johnson is an American figurative painter whose recent work is based on images of modern China. Orphaned as a small child after the death of his father and brother, Johnson has dedicated himself to becoming an accomplished artist. A traveler who has dedicated his life to studying art from all of the major museums and galleries across the world. Jake has studied art in his youth in Florence, Italy and received his Bachelors and Masters in Painting from the American midwest. His extended study included instructors from Art professors at Indiana University-Bloomington, the Slade School of Art in London, the University Art Institute in Chicago, the Art Academy of New York, and the University of Miami. His young work involved creating comical hero master-studies, which has been shown in numerous institutions, art fairs and galleries across the world, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, West Palm Beach and Shanghai China.

With recent work made from living in China, Jake is a world traveler with a unique perspective. His travels become his work in his latest series, with a interest in using painting as a medium to reveal Chinese culture. Creating portraits and images derived from his studies, friends and research into the new Era of China. These paintings are predominately made from life with residences of