Finding Direction

Beginning in 1975, hundreds of thousands of people fearing political persecution fled Vietnam by boat. As conditions in Vietnam worsened, the number of refugees grew, ultimately reaching two million. Many braved the typhoons and traveled great distances, landing in neighboring countries in Southeast Asia. Hong Kong took in many of the floating refugees, but by 1989, more than a decade after the change of government in Vietnam, Hong Kong was encouraging many of them to return to their homeland, sparking debate over the plight of this population.

At a time when the disposition of the "boat people" was being decided in Hong Kong, Fang Zhaoling made a series of paintings based on them. Writing the inscription from their point of view, Fang addresses their aimlessness and loss of direction, identifying with their ambiguous future perhaps because Hong Kong's citizens would soon be in a similar predicament owing to its imminent changeover in government.

Born in China in 1914 Fang Zhaoling studied in Britain and the United States before settling in Hong Kong. She has studied painting under a variety of teachers: Qian Songyan, a traditionalist from Fang's native city of Wuxi; Chao Shaoan, a master of the Lingnan school; and Zhang Daqian, who sought the sources of his style in China's most ancient art. However, Fang Zhaoling developed an individual style whose distinctive features are spontaneity and an apparent naiveté. The inscription by the artist reads: Drifting along in the great big ocean, like a boat moving through the vast desert, at times getting lost, at times not knowing where I came from. I decide a direction for myself, since life matters most. The affairs of the world have changed enormously. Once I establish a direction for myself, I can avoid vacillating between two different paths. Signed Zhaoling.