Lot
10
Mother #9
Photograph, 2017
60 x 91 cm,
1/5
Estimate
$3 400
Mother consists of 14 photographs and a video dedicated to Dong’s mother. After she died, Dong returned to China and found 14 of her mother’s close friends and relatives and gave each a pair of traditional Chinese shoes. After taking photos with each mother, she took a group portrait that was later transformed into a video.
This work seeks consolation and restores past narrations through visual expression of memories and loss, exploring relationships between human existence and universal emotions. By using her body to present her mother, Dong reunites with her. Mother is an embodiment of a melancholic longing for an unrecoverable past, a reminder of the inexorable passage of time and the beautiful transience of human life.
Biographical note
Chun Hua Catherine Dong is a Chinese-born Montreal-based artist working in performance, photography, video, AR, and VR. She received a BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art + Design and an MFA from Concordia University. Her works have been exhibited at Quebec City Biennial, MOMENTA | Biennale de l’image, Kaunas Biennial, Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne (Paris), Museo de la Cancillería (Mexico City), Canadian Cultural Centre (Paris), the Museum of University of Toronto, and HuBei Museum of Art (China), among others. Her work has been collected by Hydro-Québec, Bank of Montreal, Collection Desjardins, and other private collections. She was the recipient of the Franklin Furnace Award for contemporary avant-garde art in New York (2014) and on the list of “10 Artists Who Are Reinventing History” by Canadian Art (2017). She was named Artist of the Year at the DongGang International Photo Festival (South Korea) (2018). She received the Cultural Diversity in Visual Arts Award from the Conseil des arts de Montréal in 2020, and was a ònalist for the Prix en art actuel du MNBAQ in 2020.