Romance on Hobby Horses

 

Romance on Hobby Horses continues the inquiry begun in Dancing with the Wolves (2021), examining the performative nature of power in an age of spectacle. Drawing from imagery associated with protest, state authority, and public unrest, Boo Sze Yang uses irony and theatrical exaggeration to create staged, poster-like scenes where leaders, soldiers, and suited figures ride toy horses as if in a parade or procession.

 

The carousel horse becomes a recurring motif; a symbol of cyclical power, pageantry, and the illusion of progress. Rendered in vivid colours and decorative backgrounds, the figures appear poised, triumphant, or heroic, yet their weapons resemble toys and their steeds are playthings. Gas masks, once symbols of protection and resistance, now obscure identity and intention, blurring the line between hero, civilian, and oppressor. This tension between danger and play turns the paintings into tableaux where violence is stylised, sanitised, even absurd.

 

Repetition, multiple riders, synchronised gestures, mirrored poses; suggests not individuality but choreography. These are not portraits, but archetypes. Power is shown as something rehearsed and reproduced, performed for the camera, for the crowd, or perhaps for history. The imagery recalls rallies, propaganda posters, military parades, and carnival rides; spaces where spectacle shapes belief.

 

Rather than taking a moral stance, Boo invites viewers to question how authority appears in public life, and how it is consumed through media. In a world where conflict is mediated through screens and symbols

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