DOMINIQUE FUNG: BENEATH THE GOLDEN CANOPY

MASSIMODECARLO is pleased to present Beneath the Golden Canopy, Dominique Fung's first Hong Kong solo show.

March 24 – May 16, 2025

With her distinctive blend of historical reference and symbolism, Fung paints a world of contradictions, where grandeur is laced with disquiet, authority is performative, and the artifacts of the past refuse to stay still. At the heart of this new body of work is Empress Dowager Cixi, a figure long debated in historical narratives. The de facto ruler of China from 1861 until her death in 1908, Cixi has been portrayed in the West as ruthless and manipulative, while in China, her legacy remains contested. Fung does not seek to reclaim Cixi, but instead uses her as a lens to explore power, femininity, and the ways in which history is mediated and mythologized.

Fung’s engagement with Cixi is personal - shaped by childhood memories of period dramas, a book suggested by a friend, and later, a deeper reckoning with how colonial narratives have filtered and distorted history. A carpet from Cixi’s court, included in the exhibition, serves as both a tangible relic and a fragment of an elusive past. This layered approach mirrors Fung’s own diasporic identity, one shaped across time, geography, and inherited memory.

In Fung’s paintings, Cixi is a lingering presence, woven into the silk of imperial robes, the weight of lacquered jewellery boxes, and the shifting, dreamlike spaces of Fung’s compositions. These works invite viewers to reconsider who controls the telling of history and how power is both framed and obscured.

She invites us to peer behind the golden curtain - not for definitive answers, but to explore, question, and witness the fabric as it billows and shifts, revealing and concealing.