Edward Snowden affair a rich canvas for Dafen artist Huang Haifan

No one will ever know how much Edward Snowden’s leaks cost the US government, but for one artist in Shenzhen, the image of the fugitive US whistle-blower is worth at least 10 times more than imitations of famous works by Van Gogh or Monet.

At the famed Dafen artists’ village in Shenzhen, where cheap knock-offs of Impressionist masterpieces can be bought for as little as 200 yuan (HK$250) each, a portrait of Snowden will set you back between 2,000 and 3,000 yuan.

“I see him as an idol,” said painter Huang Haifan, who started his first portrait of Snowden on June 10 last year, the day he broke cover in Hong Kong as the man behind one of the biggest national security leaks in US history.

Huang, who has exhibited across Europe and studied oil painting at the China Academy of Art, has since painted four portraits of Snowden, each measuring about 1 metre by 1.8 metres.

Each is a close-up of Snowden’s face and shows him in the grey dress shirt and glasses that he wore in the now-famous 12-minute video that introduced him to the world.

Three of the portraits include a distinct backdrop, each one depicting a location that is intrinsic to the Snowden saga: the Hong Kong skyline; Capitol Hill in Washington; and Russia’s Red Square and the Kremlin.