Demystifying the Empress Dowager
For her upcoming show in Hong Kong, New York-based artist dominique Fung turns to the unlikely figure of empress dowager Cixi to investigate how a woman's image is shaped by perception, legacy and historical bias. Mariella Radaelli reports.
Dominique Fung, a second-generation Chinese Canadian artist with Hong Kong and Shanghai ancestry, excavates female history through oneiric storytelling. The role of women in society is central to her practice, and her first Hong Kong solo show, Beneath the Golden Canopy, centers around the figure of Empress Dowager Cixi, who was the most powerful figure in China from 1861 to 1908. Cixi's aura can be traced in Fung's dreamlike compositions — especially in her depictions of imperial robes and extravagant banquets.
The exhibition at the Massimo De Carlo gallery features oil paintings on both canvas and old Chinese lacquer jewelry boxes.
"I'm drawn to historical objects because they carry meaning beyond their aesthetic beauty," says the artist about the early 20th-century boxes she has used to paint on. "They are witnesses to time, shaped by the people who made, owned, and passed them down. I'm fascinated by how objects, like stories, are never static — they shift, accumulate layers, and become vessels for different narratives."
She hastens to clarify that she is not too keen on a romantic notion of nostalgia. "It's more about engaging with the past in a way that feels alive, personal, and open."
"I like to create spaces that feel familiar but are not entirely real, the ones that exist between memory and fiction," Fung says. "I pull from still life, figuration, and abstraction because I don't want to be confined to one visual language."
