hong kong max

i dont actually think myself an active painter of portraits. normally, i just paint something, and only after the thing is done, might i realize ‘hey, that looks like so-and-so’ or wonder, if one experession or another that i have painted might be inspired by someone i know, or met, or saw. i have a longer disscussion with vasco, that i think what i paint is original, while he proposes that an artist is just a filter, transmuting the visions which inhabit his or her world. i still go most often for the originality idea, but here is the second poortrait i have done since coming to hong kong, and only the second portrait i have painted since 1998.

i met a beautiful woman in the congee shop around the corner form my flat, late one evening last week. she sat alone, and when asked, shared her table, we laughed and talked. in the days following our meet, i contacted her, but got no real response. yet, even if she wasnt interested in a new friend, and was likely wary of the strange guy she met in the congee shop, she did leave behind this lovely picture, somewhere in my mind.

i painted it, and realized shortly after that it was probably her, sitting there across from me. i only slightly changed the line of her chin, and as an afterthought, the colour of her jacket to match. if i spent any more time on the picture, to make it look more like her, i would be unhappy with the work, and have to paint over it. for me, that isnt art, to try to make it look a certain way, my painting just flows. like this, is enough, and i can see her in the picture. i may never lay eyes upon this woman again, but in the event, i think she will appear much different than the person in my painting. even so, i am not wholly against vasco’s assertion, that i reproduce visions of my reality, not only creating new ones. i didnt manage to create a friendship with the woman, but at least, her image lingers, and i have a fine new painting.

i debated, with another artist friend, whether i should send the picture to the young woman who inspired it. it must be strange for her, i thought, in particular after rebuffing my attempt to ask her out on a date. but even writing this, and as xiao jun suggested, i think, no, i should not keep it secret, this picture, and i will send the link to her. why not?

oft and again, though i do get lonely (yes, inna, in honest retrospect, i must say, i am lonely sometimes) what remain my closest friends, my art, my painting, are everpresent. some of the most romantic moments of my life, i have spent in a room, alone, above a strange and exotic place, painting through the night.

yee tang, if you see this, i hope you like it, and know that you made several of my evenings so much more pleasant, first to sit with you, then to paint this picture. maybe the girl in the painting, it isnt you. perhaps it is just a thought, or a memory, a trace of your presence, which resides now in a work of art. then again, maybe it is.