At 3pm today at 798, Linda Gallery hosts the opening of “Coming Home”, an exhibition featuring the work of 37 Chinese-Australian artists. This touring exhibition will be opened by the Australian Ambassador and will be followed at 5pm by an auction of some $US 180,000 worth of art works donated by the artists in aid of the victims of the recent bushfires in the Australian state of Victoria.

The fires in which 173 people died and more than 2,029 houses and dozens of businesses were lost, had a deep impact on everyone in Australia, including the many Chinese-Australians who now call that country home. The artists involved in this exhibition decided to do something concrete to help by donating the work that will be auctioned today.

The connections between the two countries contemporary art scenes is a deep one and is distinguished by the number of leading artists who now move between the two countries, while pursuing truly international careers. Highlights of the exhibition include work by artists familiar to the Chinese audience like Guan Wei, Guo Jian, Lin Chunyan, Shen Shaomin and Laurens Tan, while work by artists better known in the antipodes, like Lindy Lee and Pamela See will also be well worth a look. All of these listed artists have donated work for the auction today.

All the works are set at reasonable prices. The very cool untitled work by established artist, Guo Jian, above, has an estimate of a very auction-friendly RMB 24,000. Guo Jian, is, incidentally, one of the three artists behind the Three Guizhou Men restaurant, doing his bit for the cuisine of his native Guizhou while pursuing an artistic career that has put him in private and public collections around the world. Get along today and have a look at this and the other 29 works on the block and raise a paddle if you can!