Entrepreneur unafraid to display his talents

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Entrepreneur unafraid to display his talents
When 13-year-old Wang Keqiang was cycling 5 kilometers every evening to study painting, he never gave much thought to commerce, let alone that he would one day become the “godfather of window dressing.”To get more Ningbo news, you can visit shine news official website.

The terminal display industry is big business today and involves a lot more than just windows. But when Wang graduated from Shanghai Art and Design Academy in 1995 and founded a company, which eight years later became the Shanghai Hooyi Displays & Fixtures Industries Co, almost no one in China had even heard the term.

“It was purely by accident that I came to be aware of the industry at that time,” said Wang. “In my eyes, display includes everything — advertising, installation, lighting — everything that is inside a shop or boutique, except the product itself and the sales staff.”

Now a cluster of big brands are on Hooyi’s client list, such as Prada, LV, Ferrari and Lincoln. In 2018, Hooyi turned over 434 million yuan.

Unlike many Chinese entrepreneurs, Wang prefers to keep a low profile, gives few interviews and has very little social media presence.Shanghai Daily talked with him shortly after the opening of an exhibition of the works of Cheng Shifa (1921-2007) at the Cheng Shifa Memorial Hall in Songjiang District. A total of 120 paintings on show are on loan from Wang’s private collection.

Cheng Shifa excelled in flower and bird paintings on rice paper, but became best known for his paintings focused on the unity and connections between the many ethnic minorities of southwest China’s Yunnan Province.

It is quite striking that Wang collects such traditional Orientalia, quite a contrast to his own work that, by its very nature, is modern, trendy and highly sophisticated.

Born in Zhucheng, Shandong Province, Wang loved painting when he was a kid. Coincidentally, Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145), a Song Dynasty painter whose scroll painting “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” is perhaps China’s most famous masterpiece, was also born in Zhucheng.

“Deep in my blood, I guess I have inherited the art gene in my hometown,” chuckled the 40-something designer.

At the age of 13, one of his paintings was selected for a children’s art competition and won third prize.

“Actually, I hadn’t received any formal art training before that. Although it was just a third prize, it ignited my passion for art,” he said.

It is easy to imagine how difficult it must have been for a boy from the countryside to get seriously involved in art during that period. He did part-time jobs to pay for his art classes and every evening rode his bicycle to the art school and back.