The small unknown gallery, Stir, looks more like a boutique. And what's even stranger is that the current exhibition features not very artistic but evidently therapeutic works by a young man recovering from depression.

Stir opened only two months ago. Owner Feng Jianwei should have entered Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art 20 years ago, but he emigrated with his family to the United States.

Now, thanks to his fabric design business, Feng is wealthy enough to open a gallery to realize his art dreams and display the work of others that he thinks is meaningful. Without telling anybody, he launched the gallery and displayed some of his own artworks.

The paintings sold very well and seven of them were bought by passersby within a couple of days. "I've never expected it," says Feng. "I mean, without a grand opening or inviting anybody."

Some days later a fellow passed by with samples of his drawings. Wang Peng, 26, born in Yantai, Shandong Province, studied architecture at Shanghai's Tongji University and said his schoolmates made him believe there must be some form of art for him.

Before Wang entered university, he was, in his own words, "a walking bookshelf with excellent schoolwork but nothing else." He got involved in drama and video shooting in university and soon found himself more interested in them than in schoolwork.

But his family arranged for him to study further after graduation, first in the Netherlands and then in Australia. "I didn't 'think' at all," says Wang. "It's my dad who told me I should 'go see the world'."

Litterateurs, such as Albert Camus, said that such circumstances are most likely to produce absurd consequences - when a person does something without knowing why, then suddenly stops to really think "why," he will have a mental crisis.

Wang found his studies in Holland very empty. He kept reading what he called "ideology stuff" without knowing what he could do in the future. Later he found, according to medical books, that he had most of the symptoms of depression.

Fortunately Wang began to draw and paint - first with pen on paper then oil on canvases - images like those of Dali - strange, surreal and nightmare-like.

Now all his drawings on A4-sized paper, if put together, are as thick as a dictionary, and about 100 pieces have been selected by owner Feng and are now on display at Stir, as well as a dozen of Wang's oil paintings.

"Now, thankfully, seeing my works on display is making me feel much better," says Wang, "because I know I can and really have done something."

Date: through December 26, 10:30am-9:30pm
Address: 172 Jinxian Rd
Tel: 021-5157-5985