A visual representation of "City" by Louise Ho
KWAN Yuet Yin Niki
Good Hope School
The themes of this artwork are the helplessness and isolation experienced by street sleepers as well as the indifference of the city.
In ‘City’ by Louise Ho, street sleepers are the main focus of the poem.
Similarly, my artwork features a man who is sleeping on the road inside a paper box, wearing some old clothes, and has nothing on his feet.
It expresses the vulnerability, loneliness, and helplessness of the man through a contrast with the liveliness of the prosperous city – Hong Kong.
In the background of the painting stand The International Commerce Centre, The Bank of China Tower and The Hong Kong Observation Wheel.
The city lights, the traffic and the roads represent the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong.
However, homeless people are often isolated from the city.
The hand that I have drawn on the bus shows that homeless people are asking for help, love and care.
I have adopted an ‘abstract’ style in this artwork.
For instance, the roads are covering the street sleeper’s body and the water is gushing from the paper box, symbolising that the homeless man is entangled in a callous and indifferent city.
The scenes create an irony.
While street sleepers are living in a seemingly prosperous and hectic city, they are often neglected or almost ‘invisible’.
City
No fingers claw at the bronze gauze
Of a Hong Kong December dusk,
Only a maze of criss-crossing feet
That enmeshes the city
In a merciless grid.
Between many lanes
Of traffic, the street-sleeper
Carves out his island home.
Or under the thundering fly-over,
Another makes his own peace of mind.
Under the staircase,
By the public lavatory,
A man entirely unto himself
Lifts his hand
And opens his palm.
His digits
Do not rend the air,
They merely touch
As pain does, effortlessly.
Louise Ho
“City” was published in Incense Tree: Collected Poems of Louise Ho by Louise Ho, p.45. Copyrights © 2009 by Hong Kong University Press.