Cat Del Buono, Brooklyn, New York based artist with “Voices”, 2016-ongoing, Video, 11:07 minutes in “Deadlocked and Loaded”. Del Buono has been creating works to bring awareness to victims of domestic violence, violence to women and issues of identity from a feminist prospective for over 15 years. As a curator, I’m happy to say she has been in many of my exhibitions, her work adds so much to the conversations. This video installation is heart wrenching and painful to listen to, especially for an empath like me. This video is a small compilation of stories taken from a large installation for “Voices” that has been touring the country.
Cat says, “The ongoing Voices project draws attention to domestic violence survivors and seeks to give them a voice. Del Buono gathers the stories and displays only the mouth of the speaker as a way to keep them anonymous. Only when a visitor gets close to a monitor do they hear the individual’s personal story of abuse. The necessity of moving toward the individual monitors functions as a poignant metaphor; we are not aware of victims in our own social circles until we get close enough for them to tell us their story. The project is normally shown as a multichannel installation but this specific work focuses on gun violence associated with domestic abuse.”
Cat Del Buono is a daughter of immigrants. She began drawing and filming at an early age, making her first Super 8 film at age 11. She received a BA from Boston College, an MFA from School of Visual Arts, and attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts graduate film program. Her works have shown at Bronx Museum, Bass Museum, Vetlanda Museum Sweden, and Fountain Art Fair to name a few, with solo shows at MoCA Miami, Blue Sky Gallery, and Microscope Gallery.
Voices, her ongoing collaboration with domestic violence shelters continues to show in a number of cities across the USA and she will have her first international version in Italy as soon as the pandemic is over. She was nominated as a 2020 Advocate of NYC and was awarded a First 100 Plus Leader Award from CT Coalition Against Domestic Violence for her work on this project. Other awards include Visiting Artist at American Academy in Rome, Brooklyn Arts Fund, Bronx Museum AIM Program, School of Visual Arts Alumni Award, and a NYFA Stipend. Her work has been featured in Jezebel, Huffington Post, Art Newspaper, Brooklyn Rail, Miami Herald, and PBS.
In her free time, Del Buono runs a nonprofit organization she started in her Connecticut hometown that provides free after-school art classes to underprivileged children.
Del Buono has partnered with a number of domestic violence organizations throughout the years, including Safe Horizon, NYC Mayor’s Office to End Domestic & Gender-Based Violence, The Lodge, The Retreat, Human Options, Good Shepherd, Becky’s Fund, and Interval House.
See more at catdelbuono.com and @catdelbuono
