Hong Kong, Victoria Harbour in Spring

I grew up across this harbour. I learned to read English on the ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui, the way the floor tilted just slightly under the wake of another boat.

For most of my life I’d promised myself I would paint this view properly. The version on every postcard is wrong — it’s all skyline, no weather. The harbour is mostly weather, actually. Pollution. Light leaking through it sideways. The boats matter more than the buildings.

I painted this from a friend’s flat in Sai Wan, on a March afternoon when the rain hadn’t started yet but you could feel it in your teeth. The whole harbour went silver for about twenty minutes. That’s the painting.

This is one of one. There won’t be another like it — the Hong Kong I grew up in isn’t quite the Hong Kong I painted, and the painting is closer to the truth than memory now.