LIMITED PRINT | 14 Years in Kowloon City

Newest release

Tracing the memories of the Decoffs, this painting is a vivid account of an expat family who for 14 years had called Kowloon City their home.

This 1950s-style walkup in which they’ve lived (on the top floor) has transformed drastically over the years, where the aging facade has been given a makeover, where old businesses gave way to the new, and where neighbors and shopkeepers became as close as family.

Poring over photographs personally provided by the family and Google Map archives, I took on the mammoth task of piecing together and reconstructing history with painstaking detail, bringing back to life the neighbors, the shops, the tales and the myriad tidbits that formed the connective tissues in a tightly knit community.
 
More than the memories of one family and beyond the confines of this Kowloon City tenement block, this piece lovingly captures life in Hong Kong in its essence and the collective memory of a people. An ambitious urban renewal project is now slated to take place in historic Kowloon City over the next 10 years.