Nineteen young Shenzhen artists will hold an exhibition in Paris from today to Aug. 23, after participating in China's first auction of children's art last month.

The 19 children, aged between 6 to 15, will exhibit more than 70 oil paintings at the Galerie Librairie Impressions. They will auction off the paintings after the exhibition, with proceeds going to children in Guangdong affected by the tropical storm Bilis, Wu Xiaoyan, the teacher of the students, said Sunday.

"Shenzhen children's paintings really gave me a pleasant surprise," said French artist Genard Charien, who helped select paintings for the Paris exhibition.

The children regard the exhibition as a chance to experience a different culture. Liu Xinyi, 13, wants to sketch the ancient European city. Fang Fang, 14, said she could not wait to see the Site du Center Pompidou and the street culture of Paris.

Men Luxi, 15, has already had her paintings exhibited in Turkey, the United States and Egypt since she started painting at the age of 7. Chinese people and foreigners respond to her paintings differently, she said, even though they appreciated her paintings.

"In China, when people admires my painting, they would say: 'It resembles the real thing!' But in other countries, people would simply say: 'It's beautiful!'"

"This shows that foreigners value creativity while the Chinese value skills," said Men.

At an auction last month, nearly 200 paintings by a group of children fetched more than 300,000 yuan (US$37,500) for impoverished students in western China.

Editor: Donald