FED senior instructor Fanny Wong’s world of colours

Studying Lolita Dresses

‘I just love painting. I just don’t want to confine my work to writing. I also want to express my thoughts and feelings through painting,’ says Wong, a smiley lady with a crisp short hairstyle. A scholar of culture and arts, Wong produces works that are one of a kind.

Wong holds a bachelor’s degree in fine art from Kingston University, United Kingdom, and a master’s degree in culture, language and identity from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Currently, she is studying for a PhD degree in the Humanities and Creative Writing Department at Hong Kong Baptist University. Mostly observations and memories of people, objects, and the nature, her works have been exhibited in Hong Kong, the UK, and South Korea.

Recently, Wong held a personal exhibition in Macau 10 Fantasia, an incubator for creative industries in Macao. ‘About ten years ago, when I was still working in Hong Kong, I already heard that there was a large group of Lolita fans,’ she says. ‘In recent years, the designs of Lolita dresses have undergone a lot of interesting changes.’For this reason, Lolita culture became her subject of study.

In studying and interviewing Lolita fans, she collected accessories from them, and gained inspiration for her own paintings, which have a dreamlike and girlish quality, with the canvas sometimes being adorned with shiny sequins, fragments of flowers, elegant lace, light feather, and even mirrors. ‘Sometimes I add a mirror to a painting, because I want to pose the question, “What is beauty?”’ she says. ‘When Lolita fans admire their lovely, elegant images in front of a mirror, perhaps they see the most beautiful side of themselves.’Wong thinks that Lolita subcultures have a postmodern flavour, and convey an individualist and positive attitude towards life.

‘There are many interesting things in this world.’

Young people in Lolita dresses often draw curious or even skeptical looks on the street. But Wong cautions against rejecting a phenomenon without thoroughly understanding it. ‘When you reject something without completely understanding it, perhaps it only shows that you know very little about this world,’ she says. ‘I think we should expose ourselves to different things and maintain an open attitude, because there are many interesting things in this world.’

At UM, Wong teaches a general education course in visual art. With students coming from different parts of the world, she tries to make the course content more diverse to cater to international tastes. ‘I try to expose my students to different things in life,’ she says. ‘For example, I will teach them about clothes and customs from different cultures, and I will also take them to different buildings in Macao so they can experience firsthand a culture that is a mix of the East and the West.’Having taught at UM for six years now, Wong is most grateful for the stable teaching environment at UM and a spacious office that allows her to make paintings to her heart’s content.

A Girl Obsessed with Pencil Shavings

Always an artist at heart, Wong was mesmerized by pencil shavings when she was a child, feeling that they looked like colourful stars. Despite a natural talent for painting, she suffered her share of setbacks in secondary school. When studying in Hong Kong, she sometimes failed art exams. Never a quitter, she kept working to improve her skills and eventually got an A in the Kong Certificate of Education Examination. For her, artistic creation is not about pursuing the outcome, but about enjoying the process. ‘The process is in itself a reward. It gives me great satisfaction to see that I can put so many emotions and memories in my paintings,’she says.

‘Mom, I want you to be scolded by your boss.’

The love Wong feels for her family members has always been a source of inspiration for her artistic creation. When she was a child, her maternal grandfather in the countryside often took her to the field to pick a kind of edible flower. After she became a painter, she made a painting in memory of her childhood experiences with her grandfather. Another painting was inspired by a picture taken with her mother during one of their trips together.

Wong works in Macao during weekdays and returns to Hong Kong on the weekends to be reunited with her daughter who is still in kindergarten. ‘Of course it’s tiring, but being able to see my daughter makes it worth all the trouble,’ she says, gazing lovingly into a picture of her adorable daughter on her desk. ‘Every time I leave Hong Kong for Macao, my daughter would say to me, “Mom, I don’t want you to go to work.”And I would say, “But if mom doesn’t go back to work, mom’s boss would scold mom.” My daughter would pout and say, “I want you to be scolded by your boss. How about you stay here and not go back to work?” ’

The mention of her daughter and other family members instantly lights up her eyes and gives a mellow glow to her face, as if during these moments, she is no longer a scholar or a painter, but simply a mother.