Bolduc. Chocolate. Fabulations.
Posted under: 
I met Catherine Bolduc at Pulse Art Fair a few weeks back. Her work was on display for her solo show in the upstairs “Impulse Room” hanging of what looked like a chocolate island (which it was) I was captured and had to know more.
What advice would you give an artist just starting out?
Be yourself, trust your work, be patient, do it for the good reasons
Your show at Pulse was “My life as a Japanese Story and other Fabulations”. What inspired you to focus on this for your solo show?
A lot of the pieces at Pulse where made or conceptualized in the context of a residency in Tokyo: I was in Japan for 6 months last year, working on a project called “My Life as a Japanese Story”. This project is a series of drawings where, like an auto fiction, I am representing myself as a hero, a “manga” figure in a fantastical Japan. My work is about the difference between desire and reality, about the way we project our own vision into reality. This project is showing more an imaginary Japan than the real Japan.
You have many depths to your work, how would you describe it to someone who hasn’t seen your art?
Well, it’s never the same to talk about visual art and actually look at it so the best description would be to look at it. I can say my work is taking different forms, sometimes in big installations with light and sound, an accumulation of found objects and sometimes it’s a large scale of watercolors full of lines and an accumulation of pearls, volcanoes, mountains, etc. Even if it’s in one form or another, my work is always about the complex relation between reality and desire. Most of my pieces are coming from personal stories in my life (love story, memory of my childhood, trip to Asia, to Europe, Egypt, Turkey, desire and disappointment, etc).
You use chocolate in your work, how do you like working with it? What element does it add? Texture? I bet the smell is divine!
The first time I used chocolate for a sculpture was for “The Lost Island”. I was invited to show in a group show where we had to choose a space on the world map and invent an ideal country. I decided to choose the smallest island in the Pacific Ocean. I was imagining a perfect island, something like a lost Paradise. To create the sculpture, I was looking for a material that would best represent the idea of desire. So chocolate was just a natural choice. My “Lost Island” is some kind of psychological Utopia where all your desires are resolved.
In your work, it’s evident you pour all your heart, soul, feelings and time very intensely yet delicately and beautifully into each piece. Which piece represents all of these emotions the most? Is there one?
Well, “Lost Island” would be a good choice…but my last drawings (the “Japanese” ones) are very close to my subjectivity because I’m representing myself in the story…
I really enjoyed “Cake Landscape” can you tell us a bit about what was used to create it and what it represents?
This sculpture is a little landscape made of a valley of beads and a chocolate river falling on the floor of the gallery, with a light coming from the inside. This was my first “sketch” for my “Lost Island”.
Are there any artists or personal friends/family that inspires you?
Several artists, of course, but the list is changing all the time. People around me as well.
Now that Pulse is over, what is your current focus?
My pregnancy!!! (My future little daughter Lou Ruya) and a new serie of large scale drawings.
Where can we find your artwork?
At Galerie SAS in Montreal, the artists’ run center called Clark in Montreal and on my website
Catherine Bolduc 