PRINCESS DIANA stares out from the wall, her yellow, orange, green, blue and purple eyes transfixing visitors, Mona Lisa style. 'She stayed here on her way to visit a drug rehabilitation centre on one of the islands,' says the proud owner of the Diana Room, a makeshift shrine to the late British royal. 'She probably used that toilet,' he says, pointing to an en suite bathroom.
On a big double bed there are a couple of books devoted to the princess, and postcards featuring her image are liberally scattered around the bedroom. The multi-coloured eyes belong to a number of Warhol-esque screen prints of digitally enhanced portraits, from a series titled Requiem for a Princess. The artist, known to some as Gainsborough, is 'one of the greatest living today' according to the publicity blurb that accompanies the images.
His real name is Andrew Kwong On-chiu, a 44-year-old Canadian Hong-konger who threw paint mixed with his blood over the Pillar of Shame, then in Victoria Park, on June 4, 1999. He followed up the stunt a few weeks later with an attempt to throw himself, dressed in a Mao suit, into Victoria Harbour during the dragon boat festival.
All of which casts some doubt on the authenticity of the Diana Room. Did she really stay there?
'Well, she stayed here,' says Kwong enigmatically. 'But we're not sure whether she actually stayed here. It's an urban legend. That's the thing about urban legends - you don't want to be too specific about them, do you?'
'Here' is the five-star, 200-unit resort called Sea Ranch built by the Hutchison group at Yi Lon Wan on southern Lantau Island in the late 1970s at a cost of $40 million. The apartment in question is the 1,000 or so square foot ground-floor apartment that Kwong has turned into an art gallery for his Hong Kong Art Exposition Group.