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ERIN CATHERINE DOMINGO

South African-born Fine and Visual Artist

Erin Catherine Domingo was born on the 7th of May 1999, making her 22 years of age. Growing up in a coloured household with a family from Cape Town, South Africa, Erin was born and raised in Gauteng in the suburb of Randburg, Johannesburg. It was decided that the university where she would obtain her BA (Hons) in Fine Arts would be The University of the Witwatersrand. Her artistic practice initially took the form of drawing and painting, however through her years at university, she was introduced to different mediums and techniques that interested her.

 

As a person who struggled with self-doubt with regards to her skill and ability as an artist, Erin found comfort in creating personal work, depicting narratives that were difficult to express in spoken word, however, therapeutic to depict through art. At the age of 19, Erin’s mother fell sick with pancreatic cancer. As the youngest of three daughters and the only one living at the family household, Erin became her mother’s caretaker and confidant through her sickness. It was at this moment and with the sudden passing of her mother in early 2020, that Erin had discovered an underlying interest in art therapy.

 

Currently interested in textile work, Erin works with cloth and fabric to create personal pieces of art that take form of the practice of art therapy. Through her work, she attempts to convey personal narratives of grief, loss, bereavement and memory. Drawing from the influence of her mother’s life and her death, Erin is trying to convey the idea that the process of artmaking holds a therapeutic nature, through expressing and depicting difficult and vulnerable emotions and experiences.

My work as a young artist has varied along the years. I found myself creating personal work taken from real-life experiences. Through the years I have navigated my challenge with mental health and more recently, the loss of my mother. My work explores personal narratives such as grief and bereavement, speaking directly from experience and therefore existing vulnerably. The works I created after my mother’s passing explored my understanding of loss and mourning, through expressing the internalized processing and emotions vulnerably onto bodies of cloth. I gained a sudden interest in cloth-work and textile in the year 2020, which has become my chosen medium currently. Seeing as though my underlying foundation to my compositional thinking takes the form of the idea of art therapy, my intention is to heal through the process of making and producing art(works) and hopefully providing a sense of healing and empathy to my audience who might have experienced the same kind of trauma as myself. I have decided that my artistic practice and career as an artist should be able to give me something in return and over time, as I create these works inspired by hardships, I begin my journey to healing.

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