Liu Bojun's 2011 painting titled Celebrating New Year. [Photo/China Daily]

Luo estimates that each artist will see 100 to 200 trades on the new platform every year, compared to exposure twice a year by auction houses.

"We respect the traditional art market made up by auction houses, galleries and private dealers. It serves for private collectors. What we're doing is to open an easier market for ordinary people, or for a broader base of investors," he adds.

With China's art market expected to continue to expand in the next 20 years, experts are hailing the creation of a bigger art market rather than a narrow one popular only among collectors.

Huang Jun, deputy director of China Art Financial Institute, says a creative trading model should encourage more participants including ordinary art lovers to join in. It should be open and include all kinds of investors.

The rise of new trading models, such as online art dealers and small-scale auctions on the popular instant-messaging app WeChat, is changing the art market dominated by large auction houses and galleries, says Huang.

Although figures released by China's compiler of art statistics Artron.net show that sale of China's art market dropped by 18 percent last year compared with 2013, the average rate of return of Chinese artworks keeps on a double-digit, up to 19 percent.

Peng Zhongtian, founder of the new platform, says that one of its aims is to boost the value of underestimated artists in China.

For example, among the first 10 "listed" artists, traditional Chinese painter Liu Bojun, 94, learned art from art masters like Pan Tianshou (1897-1971) and Lin Fengmian (1900-91). He was a classmate of Zao Wou-ki and Chu Teh-chun. Because of his imprisonment during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), Liu lived in seclusion in rural areas after being freed. Liu's art pieces rarely go to the market.

"We want to find artists like Liu, and list their works on the exchange market. Investors will vote with money for their favored artists. To some extent, they grow up with their invested artist," Peng says, explaining that the difficulty in finding underestimated artists makes the first listing small. But he's confident that in the future more artists will be joining.

(China Daily 04/28/2015 page21)