Art show supports stray animals through winter

The charity art exhibition under way at M50 art park aims to raise funds to protect stray cats and dogs from the harsh winter.

The exhibition features more than 60 works by over 50 Shanghai-based artists and includes photographs, oil paintings and calligraphy.

Each work is signed by the artist and mounted and framed to museum-collection standard. All works have been donated by the artists to help get the abandoned and homeless four-legged animals through winter.

Zhou Tao's donated oil painting "Little Tiger" vividly depicts a cute white cub with big innocent eyes licking its paw. It's also an art piece to celebrate the coming Chinese New Year of the Tiger.

Photographer Lu Yuanmin, who has documented Shanghai life for many decades, donated his "Suzhou Creek," a scene that captures two happy children playing on a docked boat.

Yang Yijia's watercolor painting lets viewers venture into a dark, mysterious night in Yaojing Village in Jinshan District, while Cai Zhiwen's Chinese ink-wash work displays a man playing zither alone in a quiet green bamboo forest.

The money raised from the exhibition, which runs till February 20, will be donated to Yang Yuhua Stray Animal's Protection Center, based in southwest China's Chongqing.

Yang, 72, has saved more than 2,500 stray dogs and cats over the past 30 years. She sold her houses and factories and used up all of her savings to maintain the center's operation.

It's the fourth year of the exhibition which has grown into a city-wide charity and art event attracting a number of established artists and animal lovers. Almost 200,000 yuan (US$31,500) collected in the previous three years was used to cover the cost of pet food, medicine, rental and staff at Yang's center.

During the one-month exhibition, pet experts will give lectures on what to do if you run into an injured stray dog or cat, and why and how we should feed the animals in a guided, scientific way. The artists will also talk about how they have been inspired by pets.

Exhibition info

Dates: Through February 20, 10am-6pm

Venue: Ruipin Gallery, M50

M50艺术园区睿品画廊

Address: 4C-107, 50 Moganshan Road

莫干山路50号4号楼4C-107