John Yau

Bethany Drawing (PMF2004/07D), 2004, colour pencil and colour drawing pen on paper, 33 x 26.5 cm.

Anna May Wong's Red Cheongsam

The first time I saw the mostly red drawing on my computer, I thought of Anna May Wong, which was strange because a blink later I realized that I had only seen her in black-and-white photographs and movies, many of them made during the silent era. What kind of slip had I made? Was the color known as Chinese red the reason I transported Wong to an unmade film in technicolor? I don’t remember ever seeing Wong in a red cheongsam, the traditional silk dress with a high neck, short sleeves, and a slit skirt worn by Chinese women, but there she was in my mind’s eye, conjured up by the drawing I was looking at, that had no sign of a figure. The gap between what I was looking at and what I was seeing does not happen often, so I take note of the gap when it does. My first sight of Wong was in the film, Shanghai Express, which I had gone to see because of the title. Shanghai was the city where my mother was born, where my father and mother met, and from which they fled on separate ships while the Red Army marched through the countryside. Writing about art begins with description and moves beyond, into reflection. What am I looking at? Where does this looking go? You can be ignorant about what you are looking at, but not willfully so. The drawing stirred up unexpected associations, which came unannounced. I did not have to find my way there, where I am seeing what is in front of me. It found me, easily. The drawing exceeds my associations; it is something to look at for itself. This is why I keep looking at Patrick Michael Fitzgerald’s art. It successfully resists language and is not easy to describe. It prompts me to think about the relationship between seeing and thinking, reflection, the act of naming. I began with a high-collared red dress with slits that I never saw Anna May Wong wear. I end up with a drawing that I have just started to see. It gives me a pleasure that resists interpretation; it exists in a state where language never arrives. Its existence is not a miracle. And yet.