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Sick artist paints to help charity

AN artist struggling with leukaemia for six years has held an exhibition named "Greed" in Liu Haisu Museum.

Zhou Zijian, a Taiwanese living in Minhang District's Hongqiao Town, staged the show to raise money to help charity.

Zhou studied technical design at university in Taiwan but has worked for most of his career in Shanghai's advertising industry.

His wife, Shen Manni, invested in a foreign trading company after they settled in Minhang District.

The couple successfully developed their business interests, but in the spring of 2003 Zhou's symptoms of a poor appetite and recurring fevers became more debilitating over a period of months and he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Zhou returned to Taiwan for medical treatment and received stem cell transplants. But the illness remained and in 2006 doctors even warned him that he had only months in life.

But Zhou didn't succumb to the disease and decided to take another road in life. That decision involved him doing things for the benefit of others. Zhou's father was a painter so he decided to learn how to paint and donate the proceeds of his work to charitable institutions.

Since devoting himself to painting five years ago, he has settled on two favorite artistic methods: oil painting and printmaking.

In 2008, he held his first gallery exhibition and the owner and other friends supported Zhou by buying his works.

Shen closed her business to work with Zhou and they learned about the Handa Kangfu Association, the first domestic non-profit leprosy institution and charity in Guangdong Province.

The lepers depend on the society's donations to cover living, treatment and rehabilitation expenditure so Shen established links with them to donate proceeds resulting from the sale of paintings.

Zhou has held exhibitions in the German Center in Beijing and Liu Haisu Museum in Shanghai since 2006. His charitable donations exceed 1.5 million yuan (US$219,729) as more art collectors buy his works.

The couple recently decided to donate money to "Angel's Home" in Beijing, a charitable organization for abandoned or mentally retarded children.


 

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