Aunt Lou, 2025
Photolithograph on paper
Edition of 20
24 x 17 1/2 in.
Collaborative Printer: Justine Ditto
Aunt Lou tells the story of Chong's maternal grandmother, Aunt Lou, who was estranged from his mother as an infant and fled to British Honduras. When he arrived in New York from his native home, Jamaica, Chong's mother sent him the only photograph she had of herself as a child, torn. In search of repair, of the rupture between Chong and Jamaica, he rephotographed it and began building still lifes around it by layering organic materials, found objects, and eventually AI-generated imagery over these archival familial faces creating what Chong describes as "material shamanism.”
For most of his life, Chong had no idea what his maternal grandmother looked like. During a visit to an aging aunt, he discovered a trove of photographs that had never been shared with the rest of the family. The image of Aunt Lou had always been a ghost in the family. During the pandemic, he enlarged the photograph in his sunlit bedroom and watched the light fall across her face. He photographed that moment, layered dandelions and wildflowers over it, and assembled the still life that became the basis for his PrintLab work. The edition is split between paper and copper.
