Industry Insight | The Integration of Art and Business, with Chinese Decorative Paintings Leading the Global Art Wave

Decorative paintings are ornamental works of art that serve to harmonize with the living environment, beautify indoor spaces, and create an atmosphere within the living environment. They are a product of the combination of art and commerce. Modern decorative paintings, with their popularization and civilianization characteristics, are increasingly close to people's real lives, and because they are affordable, they are easily accepted by most consumers. Decorative paintings differ significantly from various painting works as art collectibles in terms of main functions, consumer groups, production models, marketing channels, etc. Modern decorative painting products have made previously expensive art forms such as oil paintings accessible to the general public through their affordable prices.

According to the production method, decorative paintings can be divided into hand-painted, printed, and crystal porcelain paintings; according to material technology, decorative paintings can be categorized into canvas craft paintings, woodblock craft paintings, and glass craft paintings, etc.

Printed paintings, due to their lower costs in design and sales, can quickly penetrate the mid- to low-end decorative painting market. Therefore, printed paintings account for a significant share of the market. In recent three years, hand-painted art has developed rapidly. With the gradual decline in the price of oil paintings for hand-painted goods, affordable oil paintings have come into the sight of the general consumer, which is expected to further drive the rapid growth of the hand-painted category. Compared to printed paintings and hand-painted art, crystal porcelain paintings have relatively smaller cost advantages and also occupy a smaller market share.

Source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

Source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

Compared to the global decorative painting market, the Chinese decorative painting market has been less affected by the pandemic. The market size steadily increased from $1.19 billion in 2019 to $1.56 billion in 2022, with an annual compound growth rate of 9.4%. In the future, domestic consumers' acceptance of decorative paintings will continue to rise, new trends in personalized and customized decorative painting production will emerge continuously, and the carriers and forms of expression of decorative paintings will become increasingly rich, further promoting the development of the entire industry and the scale growth of decorative painting production enterprises. It is estimated that by 2027, the market size of decorative paintings in China will reach $2.52 billion based on supply-side sales, with an annual compound growth rate of about 10.1% from 2022 to 2027.

Source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

In recent years, global per capita income has been steadily rising. According to the International Monetary Fund, China's and the United States' per capita net income reached $8,895 and $63,985 respectively in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 2.4% and 9.5%. The increase in income has promoted a shift in consumers' consumption concepts, making them more willing to invest in decorative paintings and other home decorations to create a more artistic and personalized living space. In addition, the improvement in income levels has enabled consumers to pursue and display their social status and taste more effectively. As artworks, decorative paintings can highlight an individual's aesthetic vision and taste, thereby improving one's own social image.

With the progress of society and the awakening of individual consciousness, people's demand for personalization is becoming increasingly strong. Traditional and standardized decorative paintings cannot meet individuals' unique preferences and personalized needs. Therefore, personalization will become an important factor for consumers when choosing decorative paintings in the future. At the same time, the development and application of new technologies make personalization easier to achieve, for example, by using artificial intelligence drawing platforms to efficiently and qualitatively meet consumer needs.

Traditional decorative paintings are usually made from materials such as oil painting, watercolor, and pencil. With the increasing demand from consumers today, traditional materials can no longer meet their rising artistic aesthetic standards. With the continuous improvement of 3D printing technology, decorative painting producers and designers can choose more diverse materials and media to convey more diversified, innovative, and unique creative concepts. Non-traditional materials and media can endow decorative paintings with richer textures, forms, and tactile experiences, creating novel visual effects such as recycled materials, metals, glass, plastics, etc. The use of these materials has made decorative paintings more diverse in their forms of expression.

As people's concerns about the future living environment gradually increase, more and more people support environmentally friendly and sustainable lifestyles and regard them as part of their personal values. When choosing decorative paintings, they tend to prefer those that align with their values. In addition, decorator brands and manufacturers can encourage people to adopt sustainable lifestyles through environmentally friendly paintings, prompting consumers to think about the impact of their personal consumption behavior on the environment, highlighting the social responsibility of decorator brands and manufacturers.

The decorative painting industry has high requirements for manual production and painting techniques, leading to a high demand for labor and a strong dependence on it. The continuous increase in labor costs will result in rising prices and falling profits for decorative paintings. On one hand, consumers' demand and willingness to purchase decorative paintings will decrease due to price increases; on the other hand, rising labor costs will also reduce the competitive advantage of China's decorative painting industry in the international market, facing low-cost competition from other countries or regions. If decorative painting production enterprises cannot increase their added value through innovation and achieve differentiated competition, they may gradually fall into a situation where profitability is poor due to increasing labor costs.