Grieving Hong Kong artist marks Father’s Day with exhibition about the death of her dad
After years of mourning, Doreen Chan says she can now talk about her father without crying after channelling her grief into a solo exhibition of personal memories called ‘How to Close a Window?’
Doreen Chan Wing-yan is marking this Father’s Day with a solo exhibition about the death of her father seven years ago.
It has proven cathartic for the 30-year-old Hong Kong artist, who has stepped out of her long mourning to transform snippets of memory into original, abstract installations. The exhibition is a moving demonstration of her way to overcome grief.
Chan has constantly tried new takes on the everyday, from her photos of familiar objects to Melting as Usual (2017), her giant, breast-like sculpture of butter pats.
She says this series is an attempt to come to peace with her father’s sudden death from a stroke in 2011.
“Every time I thought or spoke about my father, I would cry. This carried on for years and would happen even when I was in a very public situation,” she says. She could only put it down to the suppression of emotions at the time of his death or the unpredictable workings of grief.
Chan has fished out specific fragments from her memory of her father for the exhibition, called “How to Close a Window?” The title refers to her parents’ long-running disagreement over whether window latches should be pushed all the way down or not.
