In her artistic practice, Catherine Bolduc takes an interest in the way the psyche interprets the real by projecting its desires on it, and by transgressing it through idealization and fantasizing. The outside world is here viewed as a subjective mental construction in which memory, whether individual or collective, influences perception and where fiction and reality merge. Drawing both on the autobiographical and autofictional, Bolduc’s explorations share elements of the travel story or childhood recollections as well as of dreamscapes or hypnotic wanderings. Presented as large-scale installations or as interventions on paper, these works alternate between the domestic and the cosmic, the sublime and the apocalyptic, in which magic shows another reverse side. By way of her themes, the motifs and materials used (decorative, kitsch, cosmetic), and a self-assumed reclaiming of affect (emotion and the romanticism), Bolduc takes a feminist stance in her practice.
Catherine Bolduc was born in Val-d’Or, Quebec, and currently works in Montreal. A double graduate with a B.A. in Art History from UDM and a B.A. in Visual Art from UQAM, Catherine also completed an M.A. in Visual Art from UQAM in 2005.
She has exhibited extensively, both locally and abroad (Japan, Germany, Spain, France, Netherlands, United States). In 2007-2008, she stayed at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin and in 2010, at the Quebec Studio in Tokyo. Recipient of the Powerhouse Award in 2013, she has also received numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec throughout her career. In addition to having completed nearly a dozen public art projects, her works can be found in the following collections:
Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec
Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal
Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal
Collection Desjardins
Banque Nationale
Ville de Montréal
Ville de Laval
Cirque du Soleil
Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe
And several private collections in Canada and the United States.
