Mahjong shop modelled in staggering detail by artist, sight unseen, is his latest ode to old Hong Kong
- Joshua Smith, based in Adelaide, Australia, makes miniatures of buildings around the world, most of which he has never seen in person
- His latest is a scale model of a mahjong shop, home to one of Hong Kong’s last artisan tile makers
An Australian artist who went viral in 2017 with his miniature version of a decrepit Hong Kong building has renewed his focus on the city, making a detailed miniature of a Kowloon mahjong store.
Joshua Smith said his handmade miniature of Biu Kee Mahjong, on Jordan Road not far from the entrance to the Temple Street night market, was finished last week, and took three months to build, spaced out over 12 months. It was commissioned by a private collector and is not for sale.
Biu Kee Mahjong is operated by Cheung Shun-king, one of the few remaining artisan mahjong tile carvers left in Hong Kong. The store is the third Hong Kong building Smith has created in miniature, after his Temple Street shophouse that went viral and a tong lau building on Des Voeux Road West in Sheung Wan.
As with most of the other buildings around the world he has recreated in miniature, Smith has never seen Biu Kee Mahjong in person – he works with Google Street View and photos sent in by his Instagram followers around the world.
“A private collector based in the UK contacted me in March last year looking for a miniature based on a small shop,” Smith told the Post. “After some research and finding out that this was one of the last shops that hand-carved mahjong tiles, I decided that [Biu Kee Mahjong] would be the basis of the miniature.”
Smith, who lives in the South Australian capital of Adelaide, rose to fame internationally when images of his Temple Street building – complete with peeling paint, posters, graffiti, laundry on poles and a shrine – became a viral sensation in 2017.
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Like his other miniatures, the 1:20 scale replica was made using wood, cardboard, plastic card, chalk, spray paint, wire and modelling plastic. The Temple Street building was completed and exhibited in New York in 2017, and later sold to a private collector in Hong Kong.
While he has created miniatures of buildings in cities as far afield as Kaohsiung in Taiwan and New York, Smith said at the time that Hong Kong had always been the city he most wanted to visit – he first developed a love of the city and its dilapidated buildings through watching the city’s kung fu films as a youngster.
Smith is a self-taught stencil artist and started building miniatures in 2015 after closing an art gallery he had been running in Adelaide. He has created dozens of buildings from cities such as New York, San Francisco and Melbourne, and has exhibited his works at galleries and art fairs in London, Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Sydney and Melbourne.
The artist says he is inspired by urban decay, and explains that the characteristic grime and wear and tear that add such realism to his work is achieved by applying layers of paint and chalk.
“I notice all the little details – the cigarette butts and the newspapers on the ground – and if I can make people see the beauty in decay, then my job is done.”
Smith said he planned on making more Hong Kong-based miniatures this year, including a model of the Lai Kwong electrical store in Sham Shui Po. “The dream would be to build something like the Kowloon Walled City. Maybe when I retire,” Smith said.
