• Issue
  • Sep 01, 2022

Up Close: Boo Sze Yang

BOO SZE YANG, We Didn’t Start the Fire, 2021, oil on linen, 120 × 150 cm. Courtesy the artist.

Boo Sze Yang’s oil-on-linen painting We Didn’t Start the Fire (2021) recomposes a news-report photo of Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protest. By repeating the figure of the depicted protestor as if they were one in a line of dancers performing synchronized choreography, Boo lends the image a theatrical effect, which is enhanced by the dramatic addition of flames in the background.