‘Messi screwed it up for me’: Year of the Dragon illustrations from Post cartoonist Harry Harrison up for auction
- Political cartoonist Harry Harrison pays homage to the Year of the Dragon with eight watercolour and ink works that examine Hong Kong’s political landscape
- The pieces poke fun at surveillance, the lack of tourism and more. One appears to mock football star Messi, but was created before his ill-fated Hong Kong trip
Following the success of his past two Lunar New Year auctions, political cartoonist Harry Harrison is back with another collection of original illustrations featuring Chinese zodiac animals.
This year’s auction, titled “2024 … Here Be Dragons”, pays homage to the Year of the Dragon with eight watercolour and ink illustrations that offer a humorous and lighthearted take on Hong Kong’s current political landscape.
“This year, there’s a lot of talk about regenerating, now that we’ve moved away from Covid,” says Harrison, who has been a cartoonist for the Post since 2001. “It’s a bit quieter this year. There’s the mega-event type stuff, trying to boost consumerism, those sorts of things – not as racy as Covid.”
But that does not mean the new set of illustrations are any less thought-provoking or comical.
“Particularly at the border crossings into China, there’s a huge amount leaving, not so many coming in,” he says.
“[It’s a] slightly bored-looking dragon, waiting for another mega-event apart from some inflatable hearts,” Harrison says of his illustration.
Other artworks in this year’s collection reference the trickle-down effects of the national security law implemented in 2020. Embracing Reform, for example, has an undercurrent of geopolitical tensions; it features the panda (China) clutching onto the dragon, who looks rather uncomfortable.
Vigilance, on the other hand, depicts policemen masquerading as members of a dragon dance team as the rabbit walks away looking paranoid.
“Covert surveillance,” Harrison says simply. “I just imagined some undercover policemen keeping an eye on things.”
“Lionel Messi screwed it up for me,” he says with a laugh. “It was a complete accident. Everyone’s going to think it’s about Messi and it’s actually not about Messi. It’s just about the 10th dragon turning up in Kowloon this year.”
Kowloon, which bears a Chinese name that translates to “nine dragons”, was named after the eight mountains that act as a border between Kowloon and the New Territories, and a final “dragon” – Zhao Bing, the last emperor of the Song dynasty. Harrison intended the 10th dragon to bear connotations of the Top Talent Pass Scheme, which aims to attract qualified individuals from abroad and counter emigration.
The cartoonist explains that he only included the sports jersey in the drawing because they typically have numbers on them.
“That was just to convey the fact that he’s the 10th dragon, turning up to meet the other nine dragons in Kowloon,” he says. “At the time of the drawing, I had no idea that Messi’s number was 10 … it’s just uncanny that it fits so well with the Messi story.”
It is a prime example of “life imitating art”, Harrison says.
